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 Dr. Craig Spencer, 33, was placed in a quarantined unit at
Bellevue Hospital on Thursday, six days after returning from Guinea,
renewing public jitters about transmission of the disease and
rattling financial markets.
Three people who had close contact with Spencer, a physician for the
humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders, were quarantined for
observation - one of them, his fiancée, at the same hospital - but
all were still healthy, officials said.
Mayor Bill de Blasio and Governor Andrew Cuomo sought to reassure
New Yorkers they were safe, even though Spencer had ridden subways,
taken a taxi and visited a bowling alley between his return from
Guinea and the onset of his symptoms.
"There is no reason for New Yorkers to be alarmed," de Blasio said
at a news conference at Bellevue. "Being on the same subway car or
living near someone with Ebola does not in itself put someone at
risk."
Cuomo said that unlike in Dallas, where two hospital nurses treating
an Ebola patient contracted the disease, New York officials had time
to thoroughly prepare and drill for the possibility of a case
emerging in their city.
"From a public health point of view, I feel confident that we’re
doing everything that we should be doing, and we have the situation
under control," he said.
 The worst Ebola outbreak on record has killed at least 4,877 people
and perhaps as many as 15,000, mostly in Liberia, Sierra Leone and
Guinea, according to World Health Organization figures.
Four Ebola cases have been diagnosed so far in the United States:
Liberian Thomas Eric Duncan, who died on Oct. 8 at Texas Health
Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas, two nurses who treated him there
and Spencer.
Health officials emphasize that the virus is not airborne but is
spread only through direct contact with bodily fluids from an
infected person who is showing symptoms.
After taking his own temperature twice daily since his return,
Spencer reported running a fever and experiencing gastrointestinal
symptoms for the first time early on Thursday. He was then taken
from his Manhattan apartment to Bellevue by a special team wearing
protective gear, city officials said.
He was not feeling sick and would not have been contagious before
Thursday morning, city Health Commissioner Mary Travis Bassett said.
Owners of the bowling alley he visited said they had voluntarily
closed for the day as a precaution. But the driver of the
ride-sharing taxi Spencer took was not considered to be at risk, and
officials insisted the three subway lines he rode before falling ill
remained safe.
"We consider that it is extremely unlikely, the probability being
close to nil, that there would be any problem related to his taking
the subway system," Bassett said.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will
confirm Spencer's test results within 24 hours, she said.
President Barack Obama was briefed about the New York Ebola case and
spoke by telephone separately on Thursday night with Cuomo and de
Blasio, the White House said.
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RESIDENTS, INVESTORS RATTLED
Spencer's case brings to nine the total number of people treated for
the disease in U.S. hospitals since August, but just two - Duncan's
nurses - contracted the virus in the United States.
The New York case surfaced days after dozens of people who were
exposed to Duncan emerged from a 21-day incubation period with clean
bills of health, easing a national sense of crisis that took hold
when his nurses, Nina Pham and Amber Vinson, became infected.
"I'm really concerned," said Kiki Howard, 26, a student who lives on
a street near Spencer's home in Harlem. "There's a school at the end
of the block. My main concern is for the safety of the children."
"I just moved here from Dallas three weeks ago," said Emma Clarke, a
dancer who also lives nearby.
The city health commissioner said Spencer's apartment was isolated
and sealed off. "I see no reason for the tenants in the apartment
building to be concerned," she said.
In a sign that the latest Ebola case had unnerved investors, S&P
futures fell 9 points or 0.45 percent. The dollar slipped against
the euro and the U.S. 10-year Treasury rose, lowering its yield to
about 2.24 percent.
The health commissioner said Spencer completed work in Guinea on
Oct. 12 and arrived at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New
York on Oct. 17. His Facebook page, which included a photo of him
clad in protective gear, said he stopped over in Brussels.
Spencer has specialized in international emergency medicine at
Columbia University-New York Presbyterian Hospital in New York City
since 2011.
Columbia in a statement said he had not been to work nor seen any
patients since his return.
A woman named Morgan Dixon was identified on Spencer’s Facebook page
as his fiancée. Her Linked-In profile said she worked in nonprofit
management and international development with the Hope Program, a
career development agency for homeless and welfare-dependent adults.
The CDC did not name Spencer but said he "participated in the
enhanced screening" instituted for all travelers returning from
Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone this month at five major U.S.
airports - including Kennedy.
The doctor "went through multiple layers of screening and did not
have a fever or other symptoms of illness," the CDC added in a
statement.
(Additional reporting by Natasja Sheriff, Barbara Goldberg, Jonathan
Allen and Laila Kearney in New York; Writing by Steve Gorman;
Editing by Louise Ireland and Howard Goller)
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