A Doctors Without Borders physician who recently returned to the city after treating Ebola patients in West Africa has tested positive for the virus, according to preliminary test results, city officials said Thursday. He's the fourth confirmed case in the U.S. and the first in the nation's biggest city.
A further test by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will be necessary to confirm the initial test results.
A law enforcement official and a city official received notification of the preliminary test results and told The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity Thursday night but weren't authorized to discuss the case publicly before a city news conference.
Craig Spencer, a 33-year-old emergency room doctor, returned from Guinea more than a week ago and reported Thursday coming down with a 103-degree fever and diarrhea. He was rushed to Manhattan's Bellevue Hospital, a designated Ebola center, and was being treated in a specially built isolation ward.
The CDC has dispatched an Ebola response team to New York, and the city's disease detectives have been tracing the doctor's contacts to identify anyone who may be at risk.
City officials say Spencer acknowledged riding the subway and taking a cab to a Brooklyn bowling alley in the past week before he started showing symptoms.
His Harlem apartment was cordoned off, and his fiancee, who was not showing symptoms, was being watched in a quarantine ward at Bellevue. The Department of Health was on site across the street from the apartment building Thursday night, giving out information to area residents.
Health officials say the chances of the average New Yorker contracting Ebola, which is spread through direct contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person, are slim. Someone can't be infected just by being near someone who's sick with Ebola. Someone isn't contagious unless he is sick. Symptoms are similar to malaria and cholera.
The Ebola epidemic in West Africa has killed about 4,800 people. In the United States, the first person diagnosed with the disease was a Liberian man, who fell ill days after arriving in Dallas and later died, becoming the only fatality. Two nurses who treated him were infected and are hospitalized.
Mayor Bill de Blasio said proper protocols were followed every step of the way in Spencer's case and it didn't appear he had been showing symptoms for very long.
"The patient is in good shape and has gone into a great deal of detail with our personnel as to his actions the last few days so we have a lot to work with," de Blasio said earlier in the day. "We have a patient who has been very communicative and precise and who has only been back a very short time and has been quite clear about individuals he had close contact with."
According to a rough timeline provided by city officials, Spencer's symptoms developed Wednesday, prompting him to isolate himself in his apartment.
Credit: AP
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