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- Jan 30, 2008
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Ebola outbreak: NY doctor Craig Spencer tests positive
A New York doctor who recently returned from Ebola-hit Guinea in West Africa has tested positive for the disease.
Dr Craig Spencer, who treated Ebola patients while working for the charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), came down with a fever on Thursday, days after his return, officials say.
He is the first Ebola case diagnosed in New York, and the fourth in the US.
More than 4,800 people have died of Ebola - mainly in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone - since March.
'No reason for alarm'
On Thursday evening, New York officials sought to ease fears of an outbreak in the densely populated city, saying health officials had prepared for weeks for an Ebola patient.
"There is no reason for New Yorkers to be alarmed," Mayor Bill de Blasio said. "Ebola is an extremely hard disease to contract. New Yorkers who have not been exposed to an infected person's bodily fluids are not at risk."
Governor Andrew Cuomo said, "We can't say that this is an unexpected circumstance."
Ebola patients are only infectious if they have symptoms, and the disease is only transmittable through bodily fluids, experts say.
Mr Cuomo said health officials had identified four people with whom Dr Spencer had contact during the period in which he was potentially infectious.
His fiancee and two friends have been placed into quarantine, said Dr Mary Bassett, New York's health commissioner.
Dr Spencer, 33, left Guinea on 14 October, travelling through Europe and returning to New York City on 17 October, Dr Bassett said.
On Tuesday he began to feel tired and developed a fever on Thursday. Dr Spencer immediately contacted health officials and was taken to New York City's Bellevue Hospital, where he was immediately placed into isolation.
Dr Spencer is the fourth person to be diagnosed with the disease in the US.
Vaccine research
The first caught Ebola in his native Liberia and travelled to Dallas, Texas, before his symptoms set in. He died on 8 October.
Two nurses who treated him in Dallas subsequently came down with the disease and are recovering in hospital.
Meanwhile, on Thursday the West African country of Mali confirmed its first Ebola case - a two-year-old girl recently returned from Guinea.
The girl's mother died in Guinea a few weeks ago and the child was then brought by relatives to Mali, Reuters news agency quotes a health ministry official as saying.
Mali is now the sixth West African country to be affected by the latest Ebola outbreak - however Senegal and Nigeria have since been declared virus-free by the WHO.
Separately, the World Health Organization (WHO) has already identified at least two experimental vaccines which it believes could be promising.
At a meeting in Geneva, the UN health body said it wanted tests of the vaccines to be completed by the end of December.
The WHO says 443 health workers have contracted Ebola, of whom 244 have died.
BBC News - Ebola outbreak: NY doctor Craig Spencer tests positive
A New York doctor who recently returned from Ebola-hit Guinea in West Africa has tested positive for the disease.
Dr Craig Spencer, who treated Ebola patients while working for the charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), came down with a fever on Thursday, days after his return, officials say.
He is the first Ebola case diagnosed in New York, and the fourth in the US.
More than 4,800 people have died of Ebola - mainly in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone - since March.
'No reason for alarm'
On Thursday evening, New York officials sought to ease fears of an outbreak in the densely populated city, saying health officials had prepared for weeks for an Ebola patient.
"There is no reason for New Yorkers to be alarmed," Mayor Bill de Blasio said. "Ebola is an extremely hard disease to contract. New Yorkers who have not been exposed to an infected person's bodily fluids are not at risk."
Governor Andrew Cuomo said, "We can't say that this is an unexpected circumstance."
Ebola patients are only infectious if they have symptoms, and the disease is only transmittable through bodily fluids, experts say.
Mr Cuomo said health officials had identified four people with whom Dr Spencer had contact during the period in which he was potentially infectious.
His fiancee and two friends have been placed into quarantine, said Dr Mary Bassett, New York's health commissioner.
Dr Spencer, 33, left Guinea on 14 October, travelling through Europe and returning to New York City on 17 October, Dr Bassett said.
On Tuesday he began to feel tired and developed a fever on Thursday. Dr Spencer immediately contacted health officials and was taken to New York City's Bellevue Hospital, where he was immediately placed into isolation.
Dr Spencer is the fourth person to be diagnosed with the disease in the US.
Vaccine research
The first caught Ebola in his native Liberia and travelled to Dallas, Texas, before his symptoms set in. He died on 8 October.
Two nurses who treated him in Dallas subsequently came down with the disease and are recovering in hospital.
Meanwhile, on Thursday the West African country of Mali confirmed its first Ebola case - a two-year-old girl recently returned from Guinea.
The girl's mother died in Guinea a few weeks ago and the child was then brought by relatives to Mali, Reuters news agency quotes a health ministry official as saying.
Mali is now the sixth West African country to be affected by the latest Ebola outbreak - however Senegal and Nigeria have since been declared virus-free by the WHO.
Separately, the World Health Organization (WHO) has already identified at least two experimental vaccines which it believes could be promising.
At a meeting in Geneva, the UN health body said it wanted tests of the vaccines to be completed by the end of December.
The WHO says 443 health workers have contracted Ebola, of whom 244 have died.
BBC News - Ebola outbreak: NY doctor Craig Spencer tests positive