Recently Returned From Africa, Doctor Tests Positive For Ebola At NYC Hospital

By Eyder Peralta / NPR

Published October 23, 2014 at 4:10 PM PDT

This story was published more than 9 years ago.

Police officers stand outside the home of Craig Spencer, a Doctors Without Borders physician who recently returned to the city after treating Ebola patients in West Africa, on Thursday in New York. Spencer tested positive for the virus, according to preliminary test results, city officials said.

A patient at a New York City hospital has tested positive for Ebola, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said at a press conference on Thursday.

According to a statement from Doctors Without Borders, Craig Spencer, 33, returned to the United States Oct. 12 after working with Ebola patients in Guinea.

He notified the nonprofit's office that he had a fever this morning and he was transported to Bellevue Hospital, where he also presented with gastrointestinal issues. Spencer had not been symptomatic before Thursday morning, which reduced the risk he could have passed the infection on to others.

Become a KPBS sponsor

At a Thursday night press conference, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio emphasized the unlikelihood of contracting Ebola through casual contact, saying that riding on the same subway with or living nearby an Ebola patient did not pose a significant risk.

New York City's Health Commissioner Mary T. Bassett said Spencer "was transported by a specially trained HAZ TAC unit wearing Personal Protective Equipment." Instead of going to the emergency room, the man was taken directly to an isolation unit. His fiance and two of his friends with whom Spencer had had close contact have been quarantined, according to New York health department officials.

In a statement, NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center said Spencer was one of their doctors who "went to an area of medical crisis to help a desperately underserved population."

NPR member station WNYC reports that Health Department specialists "are tracing all people who may have had contact with the patient and could be at risk. If necessary, those people could be placed under quarantine."

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said at the Thursday night press conference that he had spoken with the Ron Klain, the country's newly appointed Ebola czar, and that Centers for Disease Control teams were on the way to New York.

Become a KPBS sponsor

Thomas Frieden, director of the CDC, said that a team from the agency coincidentally had just completed an evaluation of Bellevue Hospital's preparedness for treating Ebola and found that the staff was fully trained in proper protocols.