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 The discharge of Dr. Craig Spencer, who worked with Ebola patients
in Guinea and had been held in isolation at Bellevue Hospital Center
since he was diagnosed with the virus on Oct. 23, means no one in
the United States is being treated for the disease.
Looking gaunt but happy, Spencer, 33, high-fived Bellevue nurses and
was hugged by New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, the mayor's wife,
Chirlane McCray, and a handful of other officials at a news
conference before his release.
"My infection represents a fraction of the more than 13,000 reported
cases in West Africa, the center of the outbreak," said Spencer, a
physician from NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical
Center who worked overseas with Doctors Without Borders.
"Please join me in turning our attention back to West Africa and
ensuring that medical volunteers and other aid workers do not face
stigma and threats returning home," said Spencer, who lives in an
apartment in Harlem with his fiancée, Morgan Dixon.
 The city also released Dixon from a mandatory quarantine at the
apartment on Tuesday.
A handful of U.S. states have imposed mandatory quarantines on
health workers returning from Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone,
where the outbreak has killed more than 4,900 people so far this
year. The federal government has warned the quarantines may
discourage volunteers.
Spencer's diagnosis followed trips on the subway to eat out and go
bowling with friends, provoking public alarm, which public health
experts said was unfounded, about the possible spread of the virus.
"It's a very, very good day," de Blasio said. "Dr. Spencer is
Ebola-free and New York City is Ebola-free."
President Barack Obama spoke to Spencer from China by phone early on
Wednesday morning to herald his recovery, the White House said in a
statement.
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"The President commended Dr. Spencer for his selflessness and
compassion in fighting this disease on the frontlines in West
Africa," the statement said, adding that he believed the best way to
protect against Ebola at home was to keep fighting the disease at
its source.
In North Carolina, health officials said on Monday that a
missionary, Dr. John Fankhauser, 52, of Ventura, California, was
deemed to be at "some risk" for developing the disease after
returning from Liberia and had been quarantined for 21 days.
There has been only one Ebola death in the United States - Thomas
Eric Duncan, who contracted the disease in his native Liberia and
died during a visit to Dallas.
Medical experts say Ebola can be transmitted only through the bodily
fluids of a sick person with symptoms.
(Editing by Barbara Goldberg, Bill Trott, Jim Loney and Eric Walsh)
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