Thomas Eric Duncan, the patient who was being treated for Ebola in an isolation unit at a Texas hospital, has died, officials said today.
“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.,” the hospital said in a statement.
“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,” the statement said.
Duncan, a Liberian man who had traveled to Texas to visit family, was the first person to be diagnosed with the disease while in the U.S. and became the first person to die of the disease in the U.S.
Duncan was admitted to the Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas on Sept. 28. Duncan initially went to the hospital emergency room with symptoms on Sept. 26. He returned in an ambulance two days later and has been in an isolation unit since then.
On Saturday Duncan’s condition was downgraded from serious to critical, as doctors worked to save his life. Hospital officials confirmed Tuesday he was on a respirator and receiving kidney dialysis.
Duncan was the first person to be given the experimental drug brincidofovir.
“The past week has been an enormous test of our health system, but for one family it has been far more personal. Today they lost a dear member of their family,” the Texas Department of State Health Services wrote in a statement.
Four of Duncan’s relatives including a woman and three males are still in quarantine in a home in Dallas.
Four health workers have been brought back from West Africa where they contracted the disease and were treated and released. A fifth person, cameraman Ashoka Mukpo, is being treated at a Nebraska facility.
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