A New York doctor has tested positive for Ebola after returning from working in the West African country of Guinea.
Dr Craig Spencer, 33, returned to the US on 17 October after having worked for the medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) treating Ebola patients in Guinea.
Spencer showed no symptoms of Ebola when he returned to his home in the Bronx, New York. However, he came down with a fever on Thursday and reported his symptoms to the authorities, who moved him into isolation at Bellevue Hospital and tested him for the deadly virus.
Spencer became the first case of Ebola diagnosed in New York, and the fourth in the US, when the test came back positive on Thursday evening.
New York officials said that Spencer travelled on the subway, went jogging, and took an Uber taxi ride to Williamsburg bowling alley after returning to the city before he reported symptoms. However, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio played down fears of an outbreak, saying:
“There is no reason for New Yorkers to be alarmed. 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 that officials had identified four people that Spencer was in contact with during the period when he may have been contagious. His fiencee and two friends have already been place din quarantine.
President Barack Obama has said that his prayers are with the patient.
Elsewhere, a two-year-old girl has been confirmed as the first person to test positive for Ebola in Mali, which borders Guinea.
Despite escalating number of infections in neighbouring countries, both Nigeria and Senegal have been decalred as free of Ebola by the World Health Organisation (WHO) after containing small outbreaks in each country.
More than 4,800 people have died in the current Ebola outbreak, mostly in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone.
