33-year-old Craig Spencer, a Doctors Without Borders physician who recently returned to New York
from West Africa has tested positive for the Ebola virus, becoming the
first diagnosed case in the city.
He came back from treating Ebola patients in Guinea on October 17 and
developed a fever, nausea, pain and fatigue on yesterday. He
is in isolation and being treated at New York's Bellevue Hospital, one
of the eight hospitals statewide that Gov. Andrew Cuomo designated
earlier this month as part of an Ebola preparedness plan.
Spencer, who is
hospitalized in intensive care, went for a jog, may have gone to a
restaurant, traveled the city's vast subway system and went bowling
before feeling ill, but authorities stressed that the likelihood of him
spreading the virus was low.
"We want to state at the
outset there is no reason for New Yorkers to be alarmed," Mayor Bill de
Blasio told reporters late Thursday.
Health officials said
three people who had been in contact with Spencer -- his fiancée and two
friends -- were healthy and would be quarantined and monitored. A
fourth, a car service driver, had no physical contact with the patient
and was not considered at risk.
Dr. Mary Travis Bassett,
New York City's health commissioner, said Spencer completed his work in
Guinea on October 12 and left Africa two days later via Europe. He
arrived at John F. Kennedy Airport on October 17. She said he exhibited
no symptoms during his journey or any time afterward until Thursday
morning. He had been checking his temperature twice a day.
Spencer went for a
three-mile jog and visited a bowling alley in Brooklyn named The Gutter
prior to feeling symptomatic Thursday morning, Bassett said. The bowling
alley has been closed. He also traveled on three subway lines.
Authorities are checking his MetroCard to determine where else he went.
"At the time that the
doctor was on the subway he did not have fever ... he was not
symptomatic," according to Bassett, who said the chances of anyone
contracting the virus from contact with Spencer were "close to nil."
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