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Patient with Possible Ebola Symptoms in D.C.; Hazmat Team at Quarantined Apartment; Dallas Official States Ebola Under Control; How Ebola Testing Is Determined; How Well Has U.S. Responded to Ebola Case; Pentagon Preparing to Send More Troops to West Africa to Help Battle Deadly Outbreak; Hong Kong Protests; Interview with Rep. Eliot Engel; White House to Brief on Ebola

Aired October 03, 2014 - 13:00   ET

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

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, I'm Wolf Blitzer reporting. It's 1:00 p.m. here in Washington. It's 5:00 p.m. in Monrovia, Liberia, 8:00 p.m. in Acera (ph), Turkey, 9:00 p.m. in Moscow. Wherever you're watching from around the world, thanks very much for joining us.

Let's begin with Ebola and efforts to keep it from spreading here in the United States. We just learned in the past hour or so that a person with possible, possible Ebola-like symptoms has been admitted to a Washington, D.C. area hospital. Howard University Hospital says the patient traveled to Nigeria. Since returning, the person has exhibited symptoms that could be associated with Ebola, including fever and diarrhea. The patient is in stable condition right now, we're told. Sources tell me the risk of Ebola in this patient is considered very, very low but they're monitoring the situation. This patient is under quarantine, at least for the time being, out of an abundance of caution.

And we've also just received a statement from the D.C. -- from the D.C. Department of Health, the director saying this. Director Garcia, the District of Columbia Department of Health has been working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention at Howard University Hospital to monitor any patients displaying symptoms associated with the Ebola virus. At this time, there are no confirmed cases of Ebola in the District of Columbia. That statement from the director of D.C. Department of Health. Once again, we're monitoring that situation.

We're also monitoring other major developments in Dallas. Right now, look at this, there's a hazardous materials team at the apartment where the Ebola victim was staying. These are live pictures you're seeing. Earlier, a company hired to clean the apartment was actually turned away until it got -- gets permission required to transport hazardous waste.

In the meantime, four people who came into contact with the Ebola patient remain quarantined inside the apartment. In Liberia, a freelance cameraman working for NBC News has tested positive for Ebola. Ashoko Mukpo's parents say he's due to head back to the United States on Sunday.

And the Ebola patient being treated in Dallas may face serious legal trouble in Liberia. Airport officials there say Thomas Eric Duncan answered no on a questionnaire asking whether he had been exposed to Ebola. According to a community leader, Duncan had been helping Ebola patients. The president of Liberia is angry.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ELLEN JOHNSON SIRLEAF, PRESIDENT, LIBERIA: With the U.S. doing so much to help us fight Ebola, and, again, one of our compatriots didn't take to cur it. And so, he's gone there and so, in a way, put some Americans in a state of fear and put them at some risk. So, I feel very saddened by that and very angry with him, to tell you the truth.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Let's get an update now on how officials in Dallas are handling the Ebola case as well as what airlines are doing to try to reassure nervous travelers.

Our Aviation Correspondent Rene Marsh, she's with me here in Washington. Our Correspondent Martin Savidge is in Dallas. What are you hearing, Rene, about the possibility that flights could be restricted to some of these West African countries?

RENE MARSH, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Well, we've asked that question over and over again, both from the administration as well as FAA. They are all saying, at this point, there is no indication, no plan to tell airlines to stop flying to this region. And you know, when you talk to a lot of these experts, they believe stopping or putting these restrictions on these airlines in place could do more harm than good.

We did speak to Brussels airlines, which is one of the three carriers this man was flying from Liberia to Brussels. And their reason, they say that it's their humanitarian duty to continue to fly there. They've got to have -- get medicine there. They have to get health care workers there.

So, if you clamp down on these airlines, the concern is, how do you get the necessary supplies there? So, at this point, no indication they'll stop the flights.

BLITZER: It's a huge, huge problem. Stand by for a moment. Martin Savidge is in Dallas. Martin, the Dallas County Health and Human Services director certainly understandably trying to calm fears about this one Ebola case, confirmed case, diagnosed in the United States in the area where you are. Listen to what he said on "NEW DAY" earlier today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ZACHARY THOMPSON, DIRECTOR, DALLAS COUNTY HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES: We understand that most people see the Ebola outbreak in Africa and, therefore, the fear that it could happen here in the United States, specifically in Dallas, is understandable. But, at this point, the family has been monitored. There is no outbreak and so, therefore, everyone should ease their fears and allow the public health officials in this state and from the CDC and the local health department to respond to this issue.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: All right, Martin, you're there. You're our man on the scene. Is the situation under control? What does it look like?

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know, it depends, really, if you look at the situation now, we're at the apartment complex where Thomas Duncan was staying and it's also where the four people, that is the woman who is described as his partner and several other family members, continue to be quarantined. I'm going to step out of the shot so you get a clear view. But you'll see that now you've got the Dallas fire rescue hazmat team that's shown up on the site.

On top of that, there's a private contracting cleaning crew that has also shown up. All of this comes about as a result of Anderson Cooper's interview yesterday with the partner of Thomas Duncan. She had that shocking revelation when she said that all of the sheets, all of the -- the mattress, the towels, everything that Duncan had used, even though he was suffering from Ebola, was still in the apartment complex. I think that shocked a lot of people, because it would have been assumable one of the first things you do is you get anything that could be potentially contagious out. It had been days. Nothing had been done.

So, then, yesterday, quickly after that interview, we saw the Dallas city officials trying to organize something. A cleaning crew showed up last night. They were then turned away because apparently they didn't have the proper authority to transport the waste that they were going to clean up and collect and haul out of the apartment.

So, this is where you get the plan versus the reality and apparently thinking about disposing of Ebola waste coming from a residence had not been part of the original plan. And this is what worries the public, that even though on paper everybody says they've got a good, working secure plan to protect the neighborhood and those who may have come in contact, they look at scenes like this. They see the missteps of the first initial misdiagnosis and they go, wait a minute here. What you say versus what we see are not adding up.

BLITZER: Pretty shocking, when you think about it. Rene, you're getting more information on this as well. What are you hearing?

MARSH: Right. So, we now know, just adding on to what Martin is seeing on the ground, that a special permit will be issued by the end of the day, that coming from a source. The special permit will allow a waste management company to essentially remove the materials inside that apartment as well as within the hospital where this man is. The issue, according to this source and why it took so long, is because they needed to find a contractor who could essentially handle all of this waste and dispose of it safely. And that company needs to have a plan for how they're going to do that safely. We're hearing this special permit will be issued by the end of the day.

BLITZER: And quickly, Martin, how are they doing in locating those hundred people who may have been in contact with this Ebola patient? SAVIDGE: Well, you know, they have a special team. The CDC has 10

people on the ground here. They've divided them into two separate teams. Those teams are, one, focused on the hospital staff and the emergency staff that initially came in contact with the patient. They're tracking down and looking at how serious their contact was. Some of them are going to be deemed as very serious because they interacted with the patient, others may have only communicated.

And the same is being done within the community. We don't know how far along they are on that list of 100. We don't know whether the list has grown or being decreased. We assume it's going down. But if it goes down, that means they're going to find those who've had direct contact. Those are the ones they want to keep a very close eye on. We expect more today on information.

BLITZER: We're going to keep showing our viewers these live pictures, that hazmat team working at that quarantined apartment. The apartment where the Ebola patient had stayed before being admitted into the Dallas hospital. It was certainly only a matter of time before an Ebola case was diagnosed here in the United States. And now, we're following developments, as I said, here in the D.C. area as well. There's a patient there with what is described as possible Ebola symptoms that admitted to Howard University Hospital.

Let's talk about this and more with our Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta, and infectious disease specialist Dr. Alexander van Tulleken who is joining us from London. He's a senior fellow at the Institute for International Humanitarian Affairs.

Sanjay, let's get some perspective now on what's going on here in Washington. This patient, who just arrived from Nigeria, I'm told, about a week or so ago, has some symptoms, has some diarrhea, some fever. But I am told that there's really low, low chance that this could be Ebola. But out an abundance of caution, they've isolated this individual. They're hydrating this person. But they don't really think it's Ebola. I guess that's the smart thing to do, even though Nigeria is one of those countries in Africa where they've done an excellent job containing Ebola, the spread of Ebola.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, those are -- those are exactly my thoughts as well. And Nigeria obviously did have cases of Ebola but there a success story with regard to how they've been able to contain it and don't have evidence of Ebola now.

I think there's always a flag that goes off when you have somebody who has traveled from that part of the world and has symptoms that may be consistent with Ebola. But keep in mind, and I think you're making this point, Wolf, that there is a lot of things that could look -- that could sort of look the way this patient does and they cause these sorts of symptoms. This is a graphic, it's a little bit of a busy graphic, Wolf. Just take a look. The high-risk people, people that you know you've had direct contact with, Ebola patients, direct contact with their bodily fluids, they have to be tested.

On the far right of the screen, people with no known risks, they're generally not going to need testing. It's the people in the middle, sort of lower risk. Did they have contact with somebody perhaps maybe someone in their household, a health care person? Not sure. You review those cases a little bit more carefully and then you make a determination as to whether testing is needed or not needed. They may go ahead and test. It sounds like they may be doing that, considering they put the person into isolation. And they'll wait for those test results to come back. If they come back negative, the patient free to go. They, obviously, still want to figure out what's causing his symptoms or her symptoms. But it's -- it won't be Ebola that will be on the list anymore.

BLITZER: I'm told, Dr. van Tulleken -- and I want Sanjay to weigh on this as well because it's a little confusing. I'm told that, at least for now, the CDC, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, they've decided not to do an Ebola test with this one individual who just arrived in the United States from Nigeria. They're monitoring this person. They're hydrating this person. They want to see what's going on. But, for some reason, they don't want to do an actual Ebola test, at least not now. What do you make of that, Dr. van Tulleken?

DR. ALEXANDER VAN TULLEKEN, INFECTIOUS DISEASE SPECIALIST: Well, I think, as Sanjay said, coming back from West Africa, you can have a huge number of other problems. And so, it's really important not to fixate on the Ebola. It's important to isolate the patient, to be barrier nursing them so that there isn't a risk of transmission. But then, they have to be treated the way we treat any other patient and that means choosing your diagnostic test carefully. A test by the CDC would involve the transport of bloods, it's quite expensive and so there isn't necessarily a reason to do this in everyone. And I think one of the -- one of the most important parts of clinical medicine is often observation and waiting.

And so, I don't think this is an irresponsible thing to do. And it sounds like they're managing it very carefully. This is the kind of thing we wish we'd seen in Dallas.

BLITZER: I totally agree. They're doing the right thing at Howard University Hospital.

Sanjay, quickly, how long does the Ebola test take before you get a result? In other words, you draw some blood but how many hours does it take to actually learn if the patient is positive for Ebola?

GUPTA: You know, you can get a result back pretty quickly, within a few hours. What has been happening is that they want to get a test and then a confirmatory test. So, for example, Mr. Duncan, his blood, they did the test in Texas and then they sent a sample to the CDC in Atlanta as well for confirmation. That obviously added another day to things. But it can be done, you know, fairly quickly. When I was in Guinea, I saw it getting done in the field -- in field hospitals within a few hours -- Wolf.

BLITZER: All right, I want you to stand by. Dr. van Tulleken, please sand by. We're going to check back with you a little bit later this hour. We've got a lot of questions from our viewers out there, here in the United States and around the world. We're going to try to answer several of them. More of the news coming up. Also, an American is now believed to have joined the fight against

ISIS taking up arms with rebel forces in Syria. We'll update you on that.

Also, we'll have much more on the Ebola response as the Pentagon now preparing to mobilize more U.S. troops to be deployed to West Africa to help battle the deadly outbreak.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: All right, we're going to get back to the other news on Ebola in the United States shortly, but there's breaking news coming in right now from Hong Kong. Let's go there. Will Ripley is on the scene. He's joining us live.

What are you seeing, Will?

WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, for the first time in several days, we have seen uniformed police officers enter Admiralty (ph), the area in Hong Kong that's been the heart of the occupy central movement and it has created quite an up roar with the crowd. I want to show you the pedestrian bridge behind these people holding the umbrellas. I saw a line I would estimate dozens of police officers in full uniform walking. Members of the crowd were shouting, put away your batons, your rubber batons. One of the devices that they would use to control a crowd in a riot situation.

The officers walked along the bridge and I'm going to kind of show you here, they walked up over this way and towards that bridge right there. Now that bridge leads into a police building where we know that protesters have set up a blockade and have been attempting to stop supplies from entering.

Did you guys get over - come over here and talk to us. Tim Schwartz (ph), our producer, was just over close to the scene. Tell me what you saw.

TIM SCHWARTZ, CNN PRODUCER: Well, there was a lot of police coming in to apparently change shift in the building here. The protesters tried to stop them, put their hands up. The police forced their way through using quite a lot of force, but there was a -- no outright violence. Some of the people getting quite heated, quite angry, shouting at the protesters and, of course, visa versa.

We saw a few people knocked over, one guy being crushed by the railing. I hope he's OK. I think he is. A few people seemed to get light injuries. In the end, the police managed to form a barrier and get their people inside and these students started calling for calm.

RIPLEY: And so - and so, Wolf, this is significant because it's the first time that we've seen a noticeable police presence in this particular part of Hong Kong. And I'm going to point the camera back over just so you can see the volume of people that are here right now. The numbers have been increasing throughout the night. We have many thousands who are lining the streets after a day that was pretty quiet. Only a handful of people were here throughout the day compared -- I say a handful, it was still in the hundreds. But we are now looking at a number well into the thousands despite torrential rain here in Hong Kong.

People seem to be galvanizing in this particular area, Wolf. There have been flash points all throughout this city today. In front of the chief executive office, protesters pro-occupy and anti-occupy protesters were battling each other, shouting insults. The police were involved there. But the police have stayed pretty hands off in this area until right now and it goes to show the tension, the fact that uniformed officers, just their mere presence here, created an uproar in this crowd. Everybody started chanting in unison things like peace and they were talking and chanted that the officers had batons. It's a very tense situation because a lot of people here feel it's only a matter of time before the Hong Pong police and a lot of people speculate perhaps the PLA, China's People Liberation Army will try to come up here and disperse the thousands of people who have lined these streets for nearly a week, Wolf.

BLITZER: And that could be a very, very ugly and dangerous situation if that were to happen.

Will, we're going to stay in close touch with you. Will Ripley on the scene with breaking news in Hong Kong. Later this hour I'll also bring in Jon Huntsman (ph), he's the former U.S. ambassador to China. He'll join us live to get his assessment of what is going on.

Also, other news we're following. When Thomas Duncan went to an emergency room with a fever and a recent travel history that included Ebola-stricken Liberia, the Dallas hospital made a huge, huge mistake. We're going to take you to another hospital to see what's being done to prevent future mistakes. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: The United States now upping its military commitment to combatting the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. The Pentagon has announced it will add an additional 600 troops to the 3,000 already committed to the region. Here's what the Pentagon spokesman, Rear Admiral John Kirby, said on CNN's "New Day" about the mission at hand now for the U.S. troops headed to Africa.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ADM. JOHN KIRBY, PENTAGON SPOKESMAN: Our main focus (INAUDIBLE) really are in four things, command and control, logistic training and engineering support. We're not going to be treating patients. The troops are not equipped to do that. That's not their job. But we are going to be trying to help establish the infrastructure, health facilities, emergency treatment units, that kind of thing so that the health care workers can do their jobs.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Let's bring in Democratic Congressman Eliot Engel. He's the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, a Democrat from New York, also a member of the Subcommittee on Health.

You agree with this decision to send 3,600 U.S. troops to Liberia to these other countries in West Africa to deal with Ebola?

REP. ELIOT ENGEL (D), RANKING MEMBER, FOREIGN AFFAIRS CMTE.: Yes, very much so. The way we're going to control the Ebola virus is by controlling it right at its heart in West Africa. And only the United States has the ability to do that. So I think it's a very excellent decision to send our people in there.

BLITZER: Why do you say only the United States? Why not the Europeans? Why not Britain or France or Italy or Belgium, the Scandinavia countries? Why is it always the United States that gets to do these jobs?

ENGEL: You know - well, no, the United States takes the lead, but other countries are doing it and this has to be a global effort, just the way we had the effort in (INAUDIBLE) in fighting AIDS. It was a global effort, but the United States kind of led the pact. I think it's the same thing here. It is a global effort.

BLITZER: But are military units from other countries being deployed to that region as far as you know, congressman?

ENGEL: I don't know. As far as I know, I don't know. But I think they may be in the future. But we know what we have and what we can give and what we -- we can do to help. And I don't think we have to wait for -- see what other countries do. I think we need to move quickly. And, again, that's the only way we're going to contain this virus. It has to be contained at the source.

You know, the problem, of course, in Africa, is that they don't have running water. They don't have all the things that we are used to having in western society. And so we have the expertise to try to build those facilities and try to make those hospitals better so that we can, again, attack this outbreak at its source.

BLITZER: There's been one confirmed case, an Ebola patient, as you know, in Dallas, Texas, here in the United States. And as you also know, there have been several major blunders by authorities in Dallas that obviously have caused a lot of concern out there and there's a lot of questioning of whether or not the U.S. government knows what it's doing right now. Here's the question, congressman, do you have confidence that local, state, and federal authorities are up to the job?

ENGEL: Well, I have confidence. That doesn't mean that -- it doesn't mean any kind of monitoring. It does. And it doesn't mean that mistakes aren't going to be made, because invariably they will. But I was on the phone yesterday with the USAID chief, Raj Shah, and we've been in touch with the CDC. And I think things are under control. But I think this is something, Wolf, that's fluid, that we have to continue to monitor it each and every day, each and every hour, and make sure that we're doing the right things because as we saw with this patient in Texas now, he lied and there were some other missteps as well. I don't think we should stand for any missteps. It's got to be monitored constantly each and every day, each and every hour.

BLITZER: And hopefully emergency rooms around the country, indeed around the world, will learn from what the mistakes were in Dallas, Texas, and they won't be happening again.

Eliot Engel, thanks very much for joining us.

ENGEL: Thank you, Wolf.

BLITZER: By the way, the White House has just announced that Lisa Monaco, the president's chief coordinator on various efforts, including counterterrorism, she's been involved in trying to deal with these Ebola outbreaks. She and other senior officials will hold a briefing at the White House, 3:30 p.m. Eastern. CNN, of course, will have live coverage. She's the assistant to the president, by the way, for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism.

We're also told, by the way, she'll be joined by Sylvia Burwell, the secretary of Health and Human Services, Dr. Anthony Fauci, of NIH, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Raj Shah, you just head him, he's the administrator for the U.S. agency for International Development, and General David Rodriguez, he's the commander of the United States Africa Command, the U.S. sending 3,600 troops to West Africa right now. So a major briefing by the administration coming up, 3:30 p.m. Eastern. We'll have live coverage here on CNN.

Still ahead, the confirmed case of Ebola in Dallas raising major concerns. Our experts getting ready to answer your questions about Ebola.

And U.S. hospitals are certainly learning from mistakes made in Dallas. We're hoping hospitals all around the world are learning as well. We're going to show you what should have happened when Thomas Duncan showed up at the emergency room with a fever in Dallas, Texas, and his own travel history. Stay with us.

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