Return to Transcripts main page

At This Hour

U.S. Airports to Screen Travelers From Africa; FBI Seeks Public Help U.S. Air Strikes Force ISIS Retreat; Texas Ebola Patient Has Died

Aired October 08, 2014 - 11:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN CO-ANCHOR: Brand new measures to battle Ebola, U.S. airports will start screening passengers perhaps as early as this weekend. So is that enough to keep the virus out of this country?

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN CO-ANCHOR: We want you to listen to and look at this man. He speaks in perfect English, certainly sounding a whole lot like he's from North America. The FBI wants your help now to help catch him.

BERMAN: And if you are a woman, you are not into sports.

PEREIRA: Huh?

BERMAN: Really. That's the suggestion from "Men's Health," and they must understand women -- or not. So I wonder if this is going to cause any controversy. Here's a hint -- yes.

Hello, everyone, I'm John Berman.

PEREIRA: You understand us, or do you.

BERMAN: I've been around some of you.

PEREIRA: I'm Michaela Pereira. Thanks so much for joining us. Those stories and much more, ahead @THIS HOUR.

BERMAN: There is news this morning -- just over the last few minutes, in fact -- about brand-new steps here in the United States to keep Ebola out of the country or try to, at least.

Airports will start screening passengers who were entering the U.S. from the Ebola zone. Those are the west African nations where thousands of people are stricken with the deadly virus.

PEREIRA: Yeah. We're getting new information about the plan to protect America. We want to bring in our senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen.

OK, so, Elizabeth, hot off the presses, tell us what we know about it, and how it works, and, more importantly, when it's going to start.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Michaela, we hear this additional screen willing start either this weekend or next week, and it's likely to be announced today that this is going to happen. So the way that it would work is that passengers who came to the United States and originated in one of the Ebola-stricken countries would be taken off into a separate screening process.

And what would happen is that they'll get their temperatures taken not with the a thermometer in the mouth but a device that's pointed at the temple. I actually -- they used this device when I was in Liberia and leaving the Monrovia airport on September 26.

And so it's not painful, it just doesn't take very long at all and so they'll check temperatures, They'll ask folks, "Hey, you were in west Africa. Did you have any contact with an Ebola patient? Did you attend any burials?" and also ask them if they are experiencing symptoms of Ebola.

And even if you're negative on all of these things -- no temperature, no nothing -- they're going to ask how they can get a hold of you now that you're in the United States just in case they need to get in touch with you later.

Michaela, John?

PEREIRA: Because of that incubation period, right?

PEREIRA: And that's the breaking news on the Ebola front here in the United States.

Elizabeth, there's some interesting news overseas on Ebola that's caught a lot of people's attention here. It's about the dog in Spain, the dog of one of the Ebola patients there.

Spain says the dog needs to be euthanized because it could be a carrier. Well, 300,000 people have signed an online petition to save that dog, Excalibur -- 300,000.

Now, 3.400 people have died from Ebola in west Africa -- humans. The United Nations and all kinds of charities say they're not raising nearly as much money as they need to to battle Ebola, not nearly as much as they raised in other disasters.

Yet in the last 24 hours, 300,000 people are trying to save this dog. I love dogs but, Elizabeth, you've been to Liberia. Are people missing the point here on Ebola? Do they not understand what's happening to humans in west Africa?

COHEN: You know, I think it's very natural. People love their pets, and when they hear about a pet being put down for possibly no reason, you have this emotional reaction. I understand that.

But, John, you are right. There are so many other things that need to be taken care of that are way more important, really, than this particular dog. People are dying in droves everyday just for some basic reasons.

We need more doctors and nurses in countries like Liberia. We need more health officials in there to trace contacts and tell people that they need to stay at home if that's the case.

There are so many other things that need to happen, and it's very murky as to whether or not this dog even has Ebola, and, if he does, could he possibly give it to a human being.

So there are a lot of unanswered questions. Remember, this is Ebola, so this is something we don't know about.

PEREIRA: Yeah, and this is the thing. It's the knee-jerk reaction that many are also concerned about.

It's like, "Put the dog down and ask questions later." No, let's ask questions. Isolate the dog, ask questions, do some tests, because this will help us understand things better.

Elizabeth, you have been so great for helping us with all of this. We'll be turning to you more.

Later this hour, we're going to be joined by a missionary doctor who has spent plenty of time in Liberia. In fact, he was there at the start of the Ebola outbreak, even testifying before Congress about it. We have many questions for him.

BERMAN: All right, our other big story this morning. So he appears to be an ISIS killer, but he sounds like any kid down the street, speaking English like any American, North American if you want to be specific.

And now the FBI is asking for your help to identify this guy.

PEREIRA: Yeah. According to authorities, this masked jihadi appears in the recruiting video, "Flames of War," that was released last month. The FBI has posted a portion of this brutal propaganda on its website, and what this mysterious man says on the video is certainly quite chilling.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're here in the 17th Division military base just outside the city of al-Raqqa, and we're here with the soldiers of Assad. You can see them digging their own graves in the very place where they were stationed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREIRA: The video goes on to show the man and other militants apparently killing those men who then fall into that very grave.

Joining us now, Peter Brookes, he is a former CIA agent, now a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation. Peter, thank you so much. I'm hoping that maybe you can help us understand why the FBI might reach out to people in North America and ask for their help.

I'm sure their intelligence officials are looking at this, combing over this video, trying to identify this man. They've got all that tech and all that intelligence on their side. PETER BROOKES, FORMER CIA AGENT: Yes, of course, and this is a bit

troubling because the FBI hasn't been able to identify this person.

And, of course, just a few days ago the FBI director in a televised interview told us they thought there were about 12 Americans that they're following fighting in Syria with ISIS. Obviously this is 13.

He did admit that he doesn't -- he's not sure what he doesn't know. So we should be pretty disturbed about this. This problem could be a lot bigger than just 12 Americans overseas, fighting with this terrorist group.

BERMAN: So, Peter, what do you do with this video? You have this video. You hear this voice. You know, do you normally get help from people if you're with the intelligence authorities when you ask America, "Do you know this man"?

BROOKES: I think so. I think there have been many cases that have been cracked, especially law enforcement cases, by reaching out to the public, whether it's a missing child or a fugitive on the run. So they're, if you know something, you see something, say something.

I mean, John, we've had 60 terrorist plots foiled in this country since 9/11 and a lot of that comes from people, John Q. Public or Jane Q. Public, telling authorities about things they're concerned about.

So besides the biometrics, looking at this individual, trying to analyze his voice, looking at the distance between his pupils, things along this line, they obviously didn't have any success with that, so they're turning to Americans to perhaps help us identify this individual.

PEREIRA: Not just Americans, it bears repeating that you said North Americans because the fact is, anecdotally, I was home, visiting family in Canada last month, and I saw a lot of headlines being made in Canada about their own concerns about Canadians leaving to go to join ISIS as well.

You wrote an interesting op-ed this morning in the "Boston Herald," speaking directly to anybody who harbors any doubt about the ISIS potency. You write, in part, "As events unfold, it turns out to be worse than originally thought, even for many of us warning about them for a while. The Islamic state isn't just some passing thunderstorm."

What do you think -- what recent developments do you think are underscoring the power of ISIS? We see these videos. We see the beheadings. They seem brutal. Why do you think there's some doubt lingering in people's minds?

BROOKES: I'm not sure why there is a doubt. I mean, I think, if you look at the facts on the ground, we've had an air campaign going on for a few weeks, even going back further, perhaps into August if you want to stretch it out, and they're doing pretty well. They're holding off the best military in the world.

Now, I think there's some problems with our campaign strategy, frankly, but the fact of the matter is they are persistent. They're resistant. They're still operating. They're doing things. They're media savvy. They're rich. They're powerful, the largest terrorist group we've ever faced.

Actually, it's a terrorist army, Michaela, so I think people really have to look at this with a sober eye, putting politics aside. I think we have a major threat to stability in the Middle East, and I'm worried about this coming here, and I think this video that came out that was made public in the last few days really tells us that.

BERMAN: Peter Brookes, our thanks to you.

And along the lines of what Peter was just talking about, a key city in Syria is about to fall in ISIS, but the Pentagon says, no big deal, really.

PEREIRA: A story out of Hollywood that is shocking many, shocking news about actor Stephen Collins, child molestation accusations, we'll bring you some of the details and have a discussion, ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PEREIRA: @THIS HOUR, we're learning and hearing reports from Kurdish activists that U.S.-led air strikes in Kobani, Syria, have killed 40 ISIS fighters and forced ISIS to retreats from part of the town.

And, in fact, I think we have -- yeah, we do -- live pictures here for you of military aircraft. We're told there's two, flying over the city of Kobani.

So, U.S. officials say ISIS will take Kobani. However, they're saying it's not a big deal. It's not considered a big deal to the Pentagon, the Pentagon being more concerned about taking out the terror group's leaders and its infrastructure than about saving Syrian towns.

BERMAN: That's why ISIS wants its black flag flying over Kobani. It would give it more than 60 miles of pretty much total control of area in Syria -- you look at it right there -- from its a self-proclaimed capital of Raqqa, all the way to the Turkish border.

I want to bring in Arwa Damon right now. She's on the border between Syria and Turkey. Her camera right now is looking at that plane if we can get that picture back up again.

Also joining us here in studio, retired Lieutenant Colonel Rick Francona, our military analyst.

Arwa, I want to start with you here. As you are looking up, you're seeing these planes circle. I know that must be welcome for people in Kobani, welcome, especially give than they probably heard overnight that the United States saying it's not such a big deal if that city falls.

ARWA DAMON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, and those words do not exactly resonate positively in this area. Now, we have been watching two fighter jets over Kobani for about, say, the last 20 minutes or so, and earlier in the day, we did see what we believed to be at least three coalition air strikes.

We believe that they were coalition air strikes because the size of the explosion and the sound of it, significantly different to the usual artillery barrage that we have been watching.

Now, the Kurdish fighters are saying that they did benefit from the handful of air strikes that did take place in the last 48 hours. They say that that those air strikes, especially those that were targeting ISIS vehicles, forced them, the ISIS fighters, to advance on foot and then that gave them the advantage that they needed to begin pushing them back.

But they're still calling for more strikes, and they're still calling for a weapons corridor to be opened because they say they're running low on supplies.

PEREIRA: Lieutenant Colonel Rick Francona is here with us in studio and you're watching this with a keen eye. We have you military experience. Tell us what you're seeing and tell us about this aircraft.

LT. COL. RICK FRANCONA, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: That's a B-1 bomber, commonly called with the bone because of B-O-N-E. Notice how he's flying. He's got his swings swept forward, he's going as slow as he can. And what he's doing is he's probably looking for targets right now because there's nobody on the ground to point those targets out so he's relying on his eyesight to see what's down there. And if he can -- if he can detect and isolate a -- an ISIS target, he will take it out.

BERMAN: Yes, but therein lies the problem, Colonel. There are no people on the ground telling him where to drop his bombs so he has to essentially just fly over and look as the city is on the brink of falling?

FRANCONA: That's exactly right. That's -- this is the problem when you try to conduct airstrikes in isolation without known designated targets.

PEREIRA: How high up in the air? Give us some specifics. How high --

(CROSSTALK)

FRANCONA: He's pretty low.

PEREIRA: He's pretty low?

FRANCONA: He's probably up in about -- maybe 20,000 feet.

PEREIRA: Is he vulnerable there?

FRANCONA: Depends. They do have air defense systems but probably not in that area. He is not up there alone. There are other aircraft that we're not seeing that are monitoring exactly what's going on, on the ground and any detection of any air defense activity like a radar coming up will be met with other aircraft.

PEREIRA: What does that say to you? It -- because again, we've been hearing, Kobani not a priority, yet we also know there's a concern about potentially, you know, 10,000 to 12,000 people being -- you know, civilians in the mix there.

FRANCONA: And I think that's what's driving this, is they realize that the Turks are slowing down the exit of these people out of this town and was creating humanitarian disaster and we do not want to just abandon these people to their fate at the hands of ISIS so they're doing what they can. It's not ideal but eventually this town will fall.

BERMAN: But --

FRANCONA: We can maybe give them enough time to get the people out.

BERMAN: Arwa, you say obviously over the last few days the U.S. and its coalition partners have flown missions over Kobani. They have dropped bomb there. What effect has that had on the ISIS fighters and has it given these Kurdish -- you know, these Kurdish fighters who were battling them any reason for hope?

DAMON: It has given them a certain amount of momentum, the Kurdish fighting force, that is, because it has forced the ISIS fighters to advance on foot and the Kurds have the advantage of knowing the ins and outs of the streets because it is after all their town and that is why they are so determined to protect it.

That rhetoric coming from, you know, the U.S., that sad reality that so many believe that Kobani is inevitably going to fall, it really causes a lot of anger and frustration here because so many of the Kurds we're speaking to feel that the coalition should have carried out these airstrikes well -- before ISIS was able to gain a foothold in Kobani.

Now they're doing what they can but they are running low on ammunition. They do need additional support.

There's an equal level of anger and frustration being directed towards Turkey as well. The Kurds have asked the Turks to allow weapons to come through. The Turks have effectively said no, we're not going to do that until you officially join the Free Syrian Army, the rebel fighters.

Turkey also saying that at this point it is not considering boots on the ground. It's not going to be launching a heroic mission to save Kobani. Rather Turkey is saying it has certain conditions that need to be met. They include a no-fly zone. They include establishing a buffer zone and at that stage they will -- they say they will consider joining a broader coalition.

They also are open to entertaining the idea of boots on the ground if that particular operation was not just targeting ISIS but also targeting the regime of Bashar al-Assad which Turkey considers to be as big a threat to the stability of Syria, to the future of the entire region as ISIS at this stage.

So the Kurds very angry and frustrated in all of this because they feel like they're effectively pawns of these overarching politics.

PEREIRA: Arwa Damon, we want you to stand by. We want to say thank you to you, and to Rick Francona.

Right now, though, we have a development in the Ebola fight, the war that is being waged on Ebola. Our Elizabeth Cohen has a development for us.

Elizabeth, what can you tell us.

COHEN: This is a development I really hate to give. We've been told now by the hospital that Thomas Eric Duncan has passed away and I want to read you the e-mail that we just got from the hospital.

"It is with profound sadness and heartfelt disappointment that we must inform you of the death of Thomas Eric Duncan this morning at 7:51 a.m." That's Dallas time. "Mr. Duncan succumbed to an insidious disease, Ebola. He fought courageously in this battle. Our professionals, the doctors and nurses in the unit as well as the entire Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas community are also grieving his passing. We have offered the family our support and condolences at this difficult time."

You know, this is obviously just terrible news. I was just speaking with his nephew this morning. Yesterday afternoon they had so much hope because his blood pressure was going up, his temperature was going down, both of those good signs.

I think that the family will have a lot of questions for this hospital. They want to know why he was sent home when he arrived with a fever and having said that he had been in Liberia. They will want to -- I know they'll want to know why he -- it took nearly a week to get him an experimental medication whereas other patients who have Ebola got those medications immediately.

They'll want to know why he didn't get blood products from someone with Ebola. Other patients have gotten blood products from people with Ebola. They will -- they will have all of those questions for this hospital.

BERMAN: Again, the breaking news, Thomas Eric Duncan, the first person diagnosed with Ebola in the United States is the first person to die of Ebola in the United States.

Elizabeth Cohen, you have been watching this over the last few days looking at the efforts to save the life of this man. And you have noted that he was given these antiviral drugs but that he was already in such a bad way that the possibility of them making a difference was very, very low. COHEN: That's right. He got this antiviral drug called

Brincidofovir, it's an experimental medication, 10 days after getting sick. That is a long time for Ebola, which is a quick-moving virus. It is really not clear why it took quite that long. I mean, we know that it took several days from the beginning because the hospital didn't think he had Ebola and they sent him home even though they were told that he'd been in Liberia and he had a never.

And then it took nearly a week to get him Brincidofovir whereas other patients got -- got a drug or another experimental Ebola drug immediately. So, you know, it's never -- there's definitely some questions here.

PEREIRA: Well, and one of those questions, too, as well, we received news that the journalist from NBC, the cameraman, the American cameraman, that was transported back to the U.S. to receive treatment was able to get a blood transfusion from Ebola-survivor Kent Brantly. Many people were wondering, so does that mean Thomas Duncan is going to get a blood infusion from a survivor and why didn't he?

Was it -- you had talked about this, about the timing of when he got the medication. Do you get a sense that blood would have made a difference earlier on? Was it just simply too late?

COHEN: You know, any medication or treatment is going to be more effective when it's given earlier. That's just a basic tenet of medicine particularly with infections. I mean I think we all this just from our own experience. If you have strep throat, you're going to get better the sooner you get that antibiotic if you need one. So the sooner the better is definitely, you know, the rule of thumb.

I -- it is unclear to me why that blood went to the patient in Nebraska yet Duncan, according to his family, never got a blood transfusion. I've reached out to the hospital many times and said, is he getting a transfusion, if not, why isn't he, and they haven't responded to my e-mails. But his family said that they were told that a blood transfusion wasn't proven to be effective so therefore he wasn't going to get one.

You know, the problem with Ebola, and I know you both know this, is that nothing is proven to be effective except for basic supportive care like getting someone fluids. But as far as all these treatments, the ZMapp, the Brincidofovir, the blood products, none of this is proven to be effective. You know, we're in the middle of a crisis here. There's no time to do those studies. Right now doctors are just -- are just trying whatever sort of makes sense.

BERMAN: All right. We want to welcome our viewers here in the United States and around the world.

The breaking news, Thomas Eric Duncan, the first man to be diagnosed with Ebola in the United States has died in that Dallas hospital. We're joined by Elizabeth Cohen who's been outside that hospital monitoring the efforts to save him over the last several days.

And Elizabeth, the fact that he did die and he is the first patient, I believe, to die of Ebola here in the United States, others have been treated here. The fact that he did pass away, does that speak to the virulence of whatever strain of Ebola he had and does it perhaps influence how others who may have come in contact with him, whether or not it might be more contagious to them?

COHEN: I don't think it necessarily speaks to the virulence of whatever -- I mean, l they all have the same type of Ebola, they all got it in the Western Africa. I think what it really speaks to is how early treatment is so important. I heard this over and over again when I was in Liberia. And Mr. Duncan did not get early treatment. He came in on September 25th complaining of a fever, told the hospital he had been in Liberia. And they sent him home and then he came back on September 28th.

So those couple of days are really crucial. Ebola patients need what's called fluid management which is a fancy term for making sure someone doesn't become hydrated and to go for those two or three days without that fluid management is huge.

The other patients who have been treated in the U.S. from the stories that -- the reporting that we've heard, they didn't go that far. Once they were identified as having Ebola they got medical care much more quickly.

PEREIRA: So it's just terribly sad. I think that we all had been hoping, hope against hope, that maybe he would fight it, especially since we had heard a little bit of positive news.

Elizabeth, why don't you stick with us? Clearly there's a lot of things that we need to discuss but we also want to bring in Dr. Frank Glover. He is a medical missioner. He is also the president of Shield in Africa, which is the U.S. company based, NGO working in Liberia. He also partners with the Christian mission group that we've heard so much about. The very heroes that are on the front line working in this ongoing battle against Ebola.

And, Doctor, I know that you join us in our sadness about hearing that this patient, this young man by all accounts, Thomas Duncan, has lost his battle with Ebola.

DR. FRANK GLOVER, DIRECTOR, THE UROLOGY INSTITUTE AND CONTINENCE CENTER: Yes, that's very unfortunate that he has lost his life. But this is a very serious virus and, as you've said, time is of the essence. Once a patient becomes ill with the disease and begins to experience diarrhea and vomiting and organ system failure, the chances of survival diminish greatly.

BERMAN: In this situation, you know, it's not over yet. If there's one thing that we have learned from these countries in West Africa that you've been dealing with so closely is it's not just people who are ill but it's also what to do after the passing. We have to expect that this hospital in Dallas right now is taking very, very careful measure of their procedures at this point, Doctor.

GLOVER: Yes, that's absolutely right. The body remains infectious up to 72 hours after the patient expires. And so he's still a risk to those that would be handing the body. So what we've been doing in West Africa is cremation and not embalming patients so as not to expose other workers to the virus and to keep it contained.

PEREIRA: Which I know is something that goes against sort of traditional practices in areas of West Africa. And this is an important thing for us to notice as we talk about the battle that is going on here. It is raging and making terrible progress in West Africa and, in fact, it was interesting. We were in contact with somebody who is on his way there. An American doctor who we're in touch with.

He is now in Monrovia and he was telling us via e-mail that he has been in touch with Samaritan's Purse that they've been developing this kit, essentially a training program to help families take care of any of their loved ones that are sickened in their home. And he admitted, Doctor, that this is not ideal.

There are so many risks about doing that but this is part of the battle but it is worrisome given the fact that you can't necessarily make sure that all of the procedures are being followed and adhered to to a T. Help us understand the challenges there.

GLOVER: Well, the challenges are vast and hard to imagine. You see, the system, Liberia's health system, was completely decimated during the war. And over the last 10 years they have not had the opportunity or the ability to rebuild the system. And so when Ebola did hit several months ago, they only had 50 doctors in country. And they didn't have an adequate number of health facilities which all shut down.

So you've got 4.5 million people and only 200 beds to treat Ebola patients and so now 90 percent of patients that have Ebola are being turned away from the treatment center simply because there's no place to go and they go back into their communities and infect their homes. And old villages, entire villages are being wiped out and so we now have deaths of a thousand or more every week in Liberia.

And so this is a very, very serious situation. We're not able to build treatment facilities fast enough to keep pace with the virus, which is now in the exponential phase. So we go from 10 to 100 to 1,000 to 10,000, to 100,000. And so unfortunately we're going to see a scale of death that we haven't seen in modern times with this Ebola outbreak.

BERMAN: Let's hope, if we can, that that is not the case.

I want to welcome our viewers again here in the United States and around the world. The breaking news is that Thomas Eric Duncan, the man from Liberia who traveled to the United States and was diagnosed with Ebola here, he has passed away in a Dallas hospital.

I want to bring in Elizabeth Cohen now who's been monitoring the situation outside the hospital.

Elizabeth, we have learned a great deal just over the last few days about the power of Ebola. I think some people thought, well, if it happens in the United States our hospitals can certainly deal with it. I think people may have thought, well, you can't really catch it out of Africa, nevertheless in Spain. There was already been a case that was contracted on European soil. So we're learning a great deal more about the power of this virus.