Craig Allen Spencer, a doctor who worked with international medical aid group Doctors Without Borders in Guinea, one of the countries that were hardest hit by the Ebola epidemic, became the first person to be diagnosed of the disease in New York City, the most populous city in the United States.
New York City's health commissioner Mary Travis Bassett said that Spencer, who was placed in isolation and intensive care in Manhattan's Bellevue Hospital on Thursday, arrived at John F. Kennedy Airport on Oct. 17 after completing his work in West Africa treating Ebola patients.
Bassett said that prior to Thursday morning Spencer did not exhibit any symptoms of the highly fatal disease and had actually been monitoring his temperature twice daily.
Spencer was apparently in good health condition a few days after he arrived in the U.S. that he engaged himself in activities many people do. He travelled using public transport, jogged and went out.
The infected doctor rode three subways and an Uber cab as well as ate out and went for a three-mile jog. He also went bowling in The Gutter in Brooklyn, which has already been closed.
Bassett pointed out that the 33-year old doctor did these activities before he felt sick on Thursday morning when he reported his temperature reaching 103 degree so the chances of people getting infected from contact with him prior to this time is low.
"At the time that the doctor was on the subway he did not have fever ... he was not symptomatic," Bassett said.
Health experts said that a person infected with Ebola cannot spread the disease until the symptoms emerge. Only when Ebola-struck patients becomes more ill, when the virus has spread in their body, that they become increasingly contagious. The virus does not also spread through the air.
In a statement, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said that it is monitoring the situation through close communication with the city's health department and the Bellevue Hospital, which is one of the eight state hospitals in New York that Governor Andrew Cuomo specially assigned to treat patients infected by Ebola.
"Three members of CDC's Ebola Response Team will arrive in New York City tonight," CDC said. "This team is deployed when an Ebola case is identified in the United States, or when health officials have a very strong suspicion that a patient has Ebola pending lab results, CDC already had a team of Ebola experts in New York City who can offer immediate additional support."
