NY Times – November 19, 2014
by EMMA G. FITZSIMMONS and JOHN SURICO
A woman who died of an apparent heart attack at a New York City hair salon on Tuesday will be tested for the Ebola virus out of “an abundance of caution” because she had recently been in West Africa, city health officials said. The woman, whose name was not released, came to the United States 18 days earlier from one of the four West African countries most affected by the Ebola outbreak, the health department said. She did not show symptoms of the virus before her death.
Health officials said they were testing the woman’s remains because she had a travel history within the 21-day incubation period for the virus. Test results were expected early Wednesday.
The city has been tracking about 300 people who had traveled in West Africa. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention gives the city a daily list of travelers coming to New York City from those countries.
Fire Department officials said they were called to the hair salon, African Queen Hair Braiding, at 32 Belmont Avenue in Brooklyn, around 2:30 p.m. Tuesday for a patient in cardiac arrest. The woman was pronounced dead there, fire officials said.
A hazmat unit responded, along with officials from the medical examiner’s office, the health department and the Police Department, said Jim Long, a Fire Department spokesman. The medical examiner’s office collected blood specimens from the woman and gave them to the health department for testing, he said.
On Tuesday night, three responders who entered the store wearing protective suits were being cleaned, according to the department’s decontamination protocols, Mr. Long said. Two others who helped with that process were also being cleaned, Mr. Long said.
“You have a well-traveled area of Brooklyn with a beauty salon that is well-traveled, and we’re taking precautionary steps that if, in fact, this turns out to be a positive case, that we’re in front of it,” Mr. Long said.
The police blocked off the commercial area to the public on Tuesday night. Emergency vehicles were gathered and floodlights lighted the street. At least one responder was seen wearing a hazmat suit as he walked out of a building.
Five airports in the United States, including Kennedy International Airport in New York and Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey, have been screening passengers arriving from Liberia, Sierra Leone, Mali and Guinea. These travelers are monitored for 21 days and checked twice daily for temperatures and symptoms, according to guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Dr. Craig Spencer, a New Yorker who had Ebola, was released from Bellevue Hospital Center last week after recovering from the virus.
Anemona Hartocollis and Matt Krupnick contributed reporting.
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