California missionary quarantined at Charlotte campus of SIM USA

Dr. John Fankhauser, a medical missionary from California, is being quarantined for the second time this year on the Charlotte campus of SIM USA, the mission group that sponsors his work in Liberia.

Fankhauser, 52, returned from West Africa Saturday after having had a “brief encounter” with a patient who was later diagnosed with Ebola, according to SIM medical director Dr. Paul Hudson. Although Fankhauser was wearing full protective gear during the encounter, the potential exposure to Ebola put him in the category of having “some risk” of contracting the disease.

Although Fankhauser was healthy when he arrived in Mecklenburg County Saturday, public health officials ordered him to be quarantined for the remainder of 21 days since he was potentially exposed. That is the maximum time it takes to develop Ebola symptoms. Dr. Stephen Keener, the county’s medical director, said Monday was “Day 7” since Fankhauser saw the patient, which means he has 14 days to go in quarantine.

Keener reiterated that Ebola infection can only be spread by someone who is exhibiting symptoms and through exposure to body fluids, such as vomit and diarrhea. Without that, he said, “It is not possible for them to spread the virus to anyone else.”

For now, Fankhauser shows no signs of Ebola, health officials said. He is staying with his wife and two children in two recreational vehicles on the 90-acre campus near Carowinds in south Charlotte.

That’s where they also stayed during a quarantine in August after Fankhauser returned from Liberia, where he was one of the doctors caring for Nancy Writebol and Dr. Kent Brantly, the first two Americans who were diagnosed with Ebola. Those two missionaries, sponsored by SIM and Samaritan’s Purse respectively, contracted Ebola while working at SIM’s ELWA hospital outside Monrovia. They were evacuated to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, where they were treated and recovered.

Fankhauser has been on the front lines of Ebola care since early in the outbreak of the epidemic in Liberia. He first went to the country in November 2013, before the outbreak, and returned this year in August. After completing the Mecklenburg quarantine that month, Fankhauser returned to Liberia to help care for Dr. Rick Sacra, a fellow SIM medical missionary who also contracted Ebola while working at ELWA hospital, which is owned by SIM and operated in collaboration with the Liberian health ministry.

Fankhauser took over Sacra’s duties as administrator of the hospital when Sacra was evacuated to University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, where he recovered from the disease.

SIM officials said Fankhauser had been planning to return to the United States for “rest and rehabilitation” before he came into contact with the Ebola patient at ELWA. He was not typically treating Ebola patients but did “briefly take care of” a patient who was later diagnosed with Ebola, Hudson said. Fankhauser was wearing full protective gear and had no direct skin contact with the patient, Hudson said. “John is a very careful and meticulous kind of guy.”

During the quarantine, Fankhauser will take his temperature twice daily and report it to a health department nurse, who will visit him daily. He is also required not to take public transportation and to stay 3 feet away from others, Keener said.

After Fankhauser finishes the quarantine and gets rest, he plans to return to Liberia to help end the Ebola epidemic. “He definitely feels this is what God wants to accomplish in Liberia,” Hudson said. “And he’s going back. That sacrifice is a great example to all of us.”

Fankhauser was screened and was symptom-free before he boarded a commercial plane from Monrovia to Atlanta, Hudson said. He was screened again in Atlanta, and still found to be symptom-free. His wife drove him from Atlanta to Charlotte, Hudson said.

“John’s commitment to helping the people of Liberia is inspiring,” said Bruce Johnson, president of SIM USA. “When his SIM colleague Rick Sacra became ill with Ebola, John said, ‘Send me back in.’ He has worked tirelessly over the past two months providing essential medical and administrative services at our ELWA Hospital, including treatment of malaria patients and delivering babies – services which are scarcely available. Last week he reported that our hospital was one of the only hospitals open in the capital of 1.5 million people.”

Fankhauser is a graduate of the University of Washington School of Medicine. Before joining SIM, he was the medical director at Ventura County Medical Center in Ventura, Calif. He also served as full-time teaching faculty in the Ventura family medicine residency program and is an assistant clinical professor at UCLA School of Medicine.

This story was originally published November 10, 2014 at 12:44 PM with the headline "California missionary quarantined at Charlotte campus of SIM USA."