Family of US Ebola Patient Moves into Donated Home in Gated Community
— -- Four relatives of the Texas Ebola patient who have been confined to their Dallas apartment moved to a home in a gated community the use of which was given to them by an anonymous donor, Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins said tonight during a news conference.
Jenkins said he rode with the family of Thomas Eric Duncan to the home at an undisclosed location within Dallas city limits. He and Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings said the donor was a friend whom they both called upon for help.
"They've got room to move," Jenkins said of the family, which is under quarantine and can't leave the property.
All the mattresses, sheets and towels inside the apartment the family left were confiscated and will be incinerated. Until then, the linens will be placed in sealed barrels inside a sealed trailer, which will be guarded by deputies, said Jenkins.
"We need to speed up this process," he said. "We're dealing with the situation that we're dealing with."
Cleanup crews also discovered today that Duncan slept on every mattress in the apartment, said city spokesperson Sana Syed. They previously thought he only slept on one.
The cleanup will continue for several more days and the car Duncan was in before being taken to the emergency room will be towed, said Syed.
The family includes two men, a 13-year-old boy named Timothy, and a woman named Louise Troh, who traveled with Duncan from Liberia and has been referred to as Duncan's wife by other family members.
Timothy's father Peterson Wayne told ABC News that he had spoken with his son by phone since he was ordered to remain inside the apartment. Wayne said that his son has been occupying his time by playing games on his phone and sounds fine but "he's the kind of kid who likes to get outside and run around."
"He said he's okay ... He sounded normal," Wayne said of his son.
The North Texas Food Bank stopped outside of the apartment on Thursday and left three day's worth of food, including produce, cereal, rice, pasta, tuna and shelf-stable milk.
Jenkins said earlier today that he visited the apartment Thursday night to apologize to the residents for keeping them in the apartment despite Duncan's diagnosis. He said that he told them that he wanted to make sure that they were treated as well as he would expect his own family to be treated.
ABC News' Sabina Ghebremedhin contributed to this report.
