Dallas Ebola Patient’s Son: “Keep Praying”

The son of the Liberian man fighting for his life in a Dallas hospital after contracting Ebola asked the community to keep praying for his family in a statement to the media Tuesday night.

“I just came out here because I feel like God was calling me to see my dad even though I got school still going on,” said Karsiah Eric Duncan, who is in college in West Texas and hasn’t seen his father, Thomas Eric Duncan, since he was three.

Karsiah has visited Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, where his father is in critical condition and being treated with an experimental Ebola drug, but did not get to see him.

Duncan is the first person diagnosed with Ebola outside of Africa, though a nurse in Spain has since come down with the disease after treating two Ebola-stricken missionaries who had returned from Sierra Leone.

Karsiah thanked members of the community for their support, the hospital treating his father, and President Obama for deploying troops to join the fight against Ebola in West Africa. He also had a message for his mother, Louise Troh, who has been living under quarantine for a week so far to ensure that she has not contracted the disease.

“Be strong,” he said. “Even though it’s hard being in a house for 21 days and not knowing what’s going to happen after she gets out.”

Ebola can take up to 21 days to manifest symptoms.

The young man also had a request for the community at large. “Keep praying that my family is going to be okay and my dad makes it out safely,” he said. “I hope they find a cure for it.”