How Ebola Patient Flew to U.S. From Liberia via Belgium

(Corrects airport name in seventh paragraph.)

The first Ebola patient diagnosed in the U.S. arrived in Texas on a United Airlines (UAL) jet to cap a journey among four airports spread across three continents.

The man now being treated in a Dallas hospital touched down at Washington Dulles International Airport from Brussels, then continued to Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, United said. The first leg of the trip took him to Belgium from the Liberian capital, Monrovia.

United’s disclosure of the itinerary yesterday settled the day-old question on what route the traveler used in reaching the U.S. from an African country hit hard by the Ebola virus. Still unresolved was the concern that the case would hurt airline stocks, which fell the most since July even as U.S. officials said the man was symptom free and not contagious on his flights.

“This is a subject where rationality can depart the premises quickly, and that’s the problem,” said George Hamlin, president of Hamlin Transportation Consulting in Fairfax, Virginia. “The person arrived by air, so people are wondering if they should travel by air. But should they go to movie theaters, schools -- wherever people get together in close proximity?”

Liberian Red Cross health workers wearing protective suits carry the body of an Ebola... Read More

The patient was identified as Thomas Eric Duncan by a person familiar with his care, who asked not to be identified because the matter is private. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has declined to release his name, citing privacy protections.

Details provided by United, a unit of United Continental Holdings Inc., and the data tracker website FlightAware show the connections he made to reach D/FW Airport. The airport, the fourth-busiest in the U.S., lacks direct service to Africa.

Duncan’s journey started at Sept. 19 in Monrovia’s Roberts International Airport, in the capital city of a country ravaged by almost 3,500 cases of the disease. While the World Health Organization has urged affected countries to screen passengers at ports and seaports, the patient wasn’t showing symptoms at the time, based on United’s account.

Patients leaving Monrovia on international flights must wash their hands twice with chlorinated water before boarding, and their temperatures are taken at a security gate. They aren’t required to fill out a form about any possible contact with infected people.

“There are stringent screening measures in place at the Roberts International Airport, which we believe are preventing the disease from spreading via air travel,” Liberian Information Minister Lewis Brown said in a statement.

An Ebola virus virion. Photograph: CDC

Duncan next arrived in Brussels, Canadian Chief Public Health Officer Gregory Taylor said yesterday. Belgium’s Brussels Airlines NV is the only carrier with service between Monrovia and the Belgian capital, though a spokesman, Wencke Lemmes, said the company didn’t know whether it flew the infected man.

About 12:30 p.m. on Sept. 20 in Brussels, the man boarded one of United’s Boeing Co. (BA) 777-200 wide-body jets bound for Washington, arriving eight hours later. After a layover, he took his second United flight, on a single-aisle Airbus Group NV (AIR) A320, late that afternoon to Dallas-Fort Worth.

“The director of the CDC has stated there is ‘zero risk of transmission’ on any flight on which the patient flew,” United said in a statement. “He was not symptomatic until several days after his trip and could not have been contagious on the dates he traveled.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Michael Sasso in Atlanta at msasso9@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Ed Dufner at edufner@bloomberg.net Anand Krishnamoorthy