The Center for Disease Control quarantined an airplane after a passenger broke out in a rash that resembled the rare tropical disease, monkeypox. INSIDE EDITION has the story.
Emergency personnel boarded a jet packed with terrified passengers to examine a woman suspected of having monkeypox, a rare tropical disease.
50-year-old Lisa Sievers had just returned from the African nation of Uganda where she is adopting a child. While there, she developed a nasty-looking rash. She called her mother who called the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia.
Concerned officials ordered an immediate quarantine when the plane landed at Midway Airport in Chicago, fearing she could have monkeypox, a disfiguring disease.
Passengers said it was like a scene from the movie, Outbreak.
Passenger Kayla Sanders told INSIDE EDITION, "They told us a woman was sick. They told us there could be something wrong. About 20 minutes later, they came on and told us we were being quarantined by the CDC."
Sanders said that as the woman was being examined at the rear of the plane, rumors spread that everyone on board was in danger of catching the lethal Ebola virus.
INSIDE EDITION's Megan Alexander asked, "What is it like?"
Sanders said, "It was like being in a movie. Thinking about it now, that two hours, two-and-a-half hours felt like a few days. Every minute felt like an hour."
After three hours, officials determined it was not monkeypox at all, but a routine case of bed bug bites.
Lisa Sievers, who has adopted ten special needs children, told the Today show she feels fine. "Fire department, CDC, people on the plane, everybody was so kind, compassionate, did their jobs well," said Sievers.
And you won't find anyone in America happier about being exposed to bed bugs than those 43 passengers.
