time for sunday house call. i am eric shaw. >> welcome, joining us is dr. david samadi, chairman and professor of you'rology and chief of robotic surgery. >> and marc siegel, author of the secret code. author of several other books and articles on emerging contagions, an expert on ebola, right, doc? >> let's hope so. >> we are going to find out. we begin today with the growing

concern about the spread of ebola, following the first confirmed case to be diagnosed here on u.s. soil, the patient, thomas eric duncan, arrived from liberia september 19th. a few days later, we are told he went to a dallas hospital, after falling ill, but was initially sent home with only a prescription for antibiotics. and today, we want to remind you, we want to hear from you. what questions do you have about the ebola outbreak? tweet us. we are going to try to answer questions with the doctors today. it is an important situation. we will start with dr. samadi and the fact that they -- how did they get it wrong, sent mr. duncan home with a prescription with antibiotics and that's it. >> so let's review and summarize everything that happened to this particular patient. i think if we can take it as a case study, there's so much we can learn. in a way, it is not good this

happened, but it is a wake up call for all of the emergency rooms and doctors out there. september 15th, mid september, he was taking care of a pregnant woman who had ebola. a pregnant woman who probably -- later we found she died of ebola. four days later, mr. duncan gets on the plane, after three stages of screening, looking for fever, these are infrared equipment used to find out if he has fever. he passed through the test, gets on the plane. the day after in brussels, already in europe, then he gets to u.s. on the 20th of september. interesting enough, from september 19 to now, which is five days, he presents to the emergency room as we mentioned, that's around five to seven days where the symptoms of ebola usually kicks in. at that time i think we basically made a mistake. somehow the doctors or nurses didn't put the two and two together to figure this out. you know, fever, coming from west africa should at this point mean ebola until proven

otherwise, and somehow we missed it. two days later, he comes back on 28th of september, with a real full blown vomiting, diarrhea, really sick. that's where he contaminated we think about 100 people. we just heard good news from cdc. >> monitoring those people. >> no, they thought there is some sort of contamination. the good news from cdc is that none of them have come up with active ebola, which is great news. they're zoning down on nine people, four happen to be family members. so overall, there's no other active case of ebola as a result of this. for this particular patient i think we could have run a very tight -- we know people on the plane are not exposed because we know unless you are symptomatic, unless you have all of the signs of fever, malaise, body ache, you're not contaminating other people. so that's a big concern. and we did a great job after we missed this, we were able to isolate him. cdc did a great job isolating him, improving, giving the

support, and going after other people to inspect. so identify, basically inspect and improve the care. >> here is what i worry about. unlike flu, we look at avian flu, when you have the symptoms, they know you have the disease. in this case, you have the disease, you don't have the symptoms. he passes through the airport. no fever. marc, he gets here, then it develops. how worried should we be about someone who potentially could have the disease but not the symptoms. >> when it comes to plane flights, there's a lot of talk about shutting down plane flights to the united states from west africa. i personally am not for that because i think that it will put the countries over there under tremendous stress, it could destabilize governments over there. we have to get help in, and we have to solve the problem in west africa. in terms of your question -- >> you think what they're doing now is sufficient? >> not yet. >> allegedly lied on his form.

>> i want to get to that point regarding what david brought up already, which is you know what, i have to tell you personally as a physician with over ten years experience in the er, i don't believe all of the patients that come in. of course he lied on the form and he is not going to say when he gets to the er i may have ebola. he may not say that. >> why wouldn't he -- >> it is up to the doctors, because people don't want to admit stuff like that. doctors with training in er medicine should ask those questions, and i think anybody that's been to liberia recently, and david said this, if you have been there or guinea or sierra leone, and you come in with muscle aches and fatigue, you may have malaria. it is unlikely you have ebola, but we don't want to miss ebola now because it is an emerging infection. we want to get it, isolate it. the cdc did a great job with contact tracing. 100 people checked. no one yet has it. they have that situation under control. what i worry about is someone who slips through the cracks,

this is why i want more intensive screening in the united states. they should isolate people at the airports that they have suspicion of. here in the united states. >> yesterday a guy throwing up on flight 998 in newark, from liberia. throwing up on the airplane, and they stopped the plane, two hours. >> as you answer, to eric's point, someone tweeted and wanted to ask why were they able to decide that particular passenger was not infected with the ebola virus? how did they figure it out so quickly? >> takes two days for the blood to cook to find out if there's any kind of ebola there, but i think part of the fear factor is because we don't know enough. that's part of the reason we have the whole segment of sunday house call devoted to this to give information so people don't panic. when we had sars, cdc did a

fantastic job by putting on the website what the pilot should do, what kind of gowns are needed, what to do in airports. one thing marc brought up, they're getting screen for fever, you may have body ache and malaise and not fever, and get on the plane. what do we have at major airports? it is good to look for those symptoms. if you're on route for three days, that may be enough to start having some fevers here in our system. dr. frieden talked about the fact 77 people not allowed to come as a result of that screening, so it works, but you're right. the questionnaire, he checked no exposure to ebola, which was wrong, and now we have to make sure this doesn't happen. >> i want every american there to be concerned about west africa now. here is why. because if we can get it under control in west africa, which we're not close to, we are months behind. the aid there is months behind.

even the army deployment which i think will help, they'll build facilities and people may not know this, but the united states military is trained at emerging contagions, emerging infections. get the military there, money from all over the world, public health people from all over the world on the ground. right now, it is doubling every month over in west africa. here there's one case. we are all about as david said cutting through the fear here, but there's 320 million americans there, and one case. if we want to control it, we have to control it in west africa. >> i think the reason people are upset is because there are children that are going to the school, saying hey, i don't want my kids to be exposed to this, and if you're going to have one case, you're going to have a lot more. can dr. siegel guarantee we won't have any more of these? >> we have to go to break, but dr. frieden in his news conference said, quote, we can stop ebola in texas and in this country, but he also said there's a possibility that there will be another case.

so coming up as sunday house call continues, we look at that, and see how it can be transmitted. we are told it is only through bodily fluids, but apparently it lives on countertops, can live on door knobs for a few hours. we will give you all you need to know about ebola, separate the fear from the facts, right here on sunday house call, the real information. this is holly. her long day of outdoor adventure starts with knee pain. and a choice. take 6 tylenol in a day or just 2 aleve for all day relief. onward!

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back now to sunday house call. a special program on ebola. the centers for disease control insists the odds of contracting ebola here in our country are still extremely low. so how exactly can it be spread? dr. siegel, we are told first bodily fluids, vomit, blood,

sweat, sal ief a then in the new york city they say it can live on a countertop, door knob for a few hours. can you touch something and get ebola? >> the answer is that's extremely unlikely. give you an example why. there was a patient in 1986 went to the hospital, was there 12 days, encountered 300 people, no one knew he had ebola. you know how many got ebola from him? zero. it is a very, very hard virus to get. why? it lives in blood, vomit, in diarrhea. it lives a lot less in saliva. some lives in saliva, after two, three days, saliva somehow knocks it out. very little in urine, sweat later stages of the diseases. people say i am on the subway, people are sweating, can i get it. probably. can't deal in never, can't deal in absolute. somebody sick enough to have it in sweat is not likely to be riding the subway. that's when they're likely in

the intensive care unit. most likely is the secretions. eric, if those are on surfaces, it can live hours while still wet secretions. people out there in west africa don't use toilet paper, so it is very easy there to transmit this virus in secretions. would be harder to do, but not impossible here. on the surface, door knob it dies in a couple hours. >> dr. siegel, you answered a question from gretchen who was asking with planes from liberia landing in new york, how worried should nyc citizens feel about riding public transportation. you said they should not be. >> no, it is too remote. i wouldn't say zero, but it is remote. >> i think direct contact, all of those droplets could be part of direct contact. when you go into a room to examine a patient, for someone who has contact isolation, you wear a mask, gowns, cover your shoes. the concentration of virus is higher in blood, could be higher

in diarrhea and vomit, but not zero and also the droplets. this is not a respiratory disease, whether it will mutate in the future to become respiratory, we hope not. >> it is not spread through the air. >> exactly right. that's a well-known fact. we know that. but if somebody coughs or sneeze or handshake, one of the mysteries is how did that camera crew from nbc get this kind of disease? i doubt he was cleaning up vomit or drawing blood, how did he get this. handshake? you may have cracks in the hands come exposed to blood, and also mucosa of the eyes and mouth are all part of the fact that these droplets can get in. if these can leave on a surface from hours to days, the next plane that comes in, they are to clean with bleach. bleach is the only one that can wipe out this kind of virus. so the risks are less, but it is not zero. that's why i think moving in the future, in our planes, we should have masks, in case someone

tries to vomit and you have a problem. >> one other thing to mention, i agree with him. casual contact, almost never. close contact with is he kreegss, frequently. one thing is sexual contact. you can carry it in semen up to three months afterward. sexual contact, advice from centers for disease control, if you have ebola, you don't have sex for three months after active symptoms. that's the advice, you can't be 100% sure on that. that's the wild card in all this. >> good question. i will tease it, answer when we come back. francis bud row, will the cold and flu season help spread the ebola virus or stop it. we will talk about that when we come back. basically, what the doctors are saying, the odds are contracting ebola here at home remain extremely low, but what if you live in dallas, the place where the first u.s. case of the virus was diagnosed. do you have anything to worry about? the doctors will tell us. don't miss what the doctors have to say about that next.

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now for our "should i worry" question. our weekly segment about everything that worries us. this week's question, "i live in dallas where the first u.s. case of ebola was diagnosed. should i worry? >> the short answer is no, because cdc's doing a great job by isolating the patient and also has gone after everyone that has been exposed and are ruling the ebola. i would not worry about this. big concern is where are we headed and are we going to get more of these patients. every emergency room is on alert. everyone has learned a big

lesson offense here to pay attention. we're heading toward the flu season so there could be some overlap between the flu and ebola. the question is how do you distinguish besides asking for smoking, history of alcohol and everything else, there should be a big emphasis on travel history. if you've gone to any of those three neighborhoods in west africa, that's a huge red flag. hopefully we will be able to catch anyone that comes in. adding more screening on our end i think we're going to cut down on a lot of these numbers and this won't become a huge epidemic. >> if someone has it, do they get turned around? >> in most airports right now there are centers where they can take you to quarantine. infectious disease doctors available. they isolate you until they figure out what's going on. we need screening on our enas well. >> they're taken care of at the airports. we have a tweet from drake who writes, are doctors trained in the u.s. properly to handle ebola? you guys ever take this in

medical school? >> i've done a lot of reading on it obviously. here's my answer to this. we like to look at the worst case scenario in a situation like this. we hinted at this earlier in the show. somebody comes to the emergency room and they have flu like symptoms and they travel from west africa. you figure out that that's high on your list. by the way, it is going to get harder with flu season coming up because we're about to enter flu season in a month and everybody's going to be coming in with the sniffles, with the headache, with the fatigue, with the fever. you got to be really on top of it and really get to that travel history. >> were you in liberia? can you ask? >> absolutely. a top expert yesterday talked about cdc protocols. my answer is every doctor that's seeing a patient in the emergency room should be thinking about this and if you have a question, call in an expert, call in an infectious disease expert. >> a lot of emergency rooms in this country, they're exhausted. meaning that there are layers

and layers of patients sitting next to each other and there could be a lot of body fluid that could be exchanged. as nurses and doctors and health care providers we just need to run a tighter ship. >> francis wants to know will the cold and flu season in the u.s. help spread the ebola virus or stop it. >> no. we said it is not a respiratory disease. it is all through close contact and that is not going to be an issue. sometimes these viruses can mutate. >> so there is the possibility of another case of someone coming from africa here but they claim they are on it, they are confident. are you? we'll have a lot more here on ebola as "sunday house call" continues. and dedicated support, free you to focus on what matters. centurylink. your link to what's next. on my journey across america, i've learned that when you ask someone in texas if they want "big" savings on car insurance,

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take 4 advil in a day or just 2 aleve for all day relief. honey, you did it! baby laughs! back now with "sunday house call," there is no cure yet for ebola but doctors are turning to a treatment that includes using the blood of people who have had ebola but then recovered. they are working on that ebola vaccine which has been used. doctor, will this work? >> flooding people with blood of people who survive ebola doesn't work that well. it is called passive immunity. what does work well are these antibodies like a cancer treatment that they've used like z. which we're unfortunately out of right now.

zmapp. i think the vaccine is very promising being studied at the nih right now. 20 people got test trials. they're fast tracking it. in november they're going to start giving it to a lot of people in west africa. that's phase two. it should be through phase three by the end of 2015. phase three is we're done, put it out on the market. that should happen one year from now. that's pretty good. that could be a game changer. but one year is a long way away. >> i think what people want to know is exactly what they do right now. . with a we need to do is send a lot of health care volunteers over there, invest the kind of money that we are investing. if we are not going to be able to do the job that we do over here, we need to stop worrying about all these governmental policies. cut down on some of the flights out. send the volunteers to take care of the problem over there because people are concerned in this country and we have to deal with this seriously. the canadian system are working with the u.s. to come up with this vaccine. giving whole blood is okay but

you have to worry about hiv and hepatitis at the same time and there is a lot of concern with about this. what's good is all these antivirals that may be able to boost some of the antibodies. >> those porous borders over there, if we close off those countries we're going to spread panic over there. historically with a plague and every other emerging contingent, when you rope off a country the countrygrates at violence will spread. >> i live in iowa, in arkansas, should i be worried about getting ebola. >> not now. we should keep our eye on it. you're not going to get it now. >> look, i think this is a fluid situation. things can change. we need to watch this carefully. i think that the fact that there are some porous borders over there doesn't mean that we don't need to protect ourself. watch this carefully. we need to protect our citizens very carefully, at the same time take the war over there and fix it and isolate. that's the key word, isolate the disease. that's how you win this war.

>> thank you very much. programming note, dr. segal will have a report tomorrow on how hospitals are preparing for the ebola threat and how testing is done. that does it for us. because of our health care system and our ability to do the contact tracing and isolation, we won't have an outbreak. >> the national institutes of health's infectious disease chief tries to calm worries about ebola here in america. meanwhile, the first person diagnosed on u.s. soil with the deadly virus takes a turn for the worse. while officials monitor about 50 people he came into contact with. a live report. plus, ted poe, texas congressman, says it is time to talk travel bans. despite air strikes isis militants pushed toward a keyboarder town in syria near the turkish border. we're live from the region where