First New Yorker in isolation after contracting Ebola: Three others quarantined

Ebola continues its spread in the United States as a doctor in New York City recently contracted the deadly disease. The doctor is currently being held in isolation at the Bellevue Hospital Center while health officials track his travels to make sure he did not pass it on to anyone else.

The doctor in question is called Craig Spencer, 33, an emergency physician employed at New York Presbyterian Hospital. He was placed in isolation on Oct. 23, after he began to show Ebola-like symptoms, which consists of diarrhea and a fever.

Spencer reported having a fever of 100.3 degrees and was taken into isolation at Bellevue shortly afterward. Initial reports said his fever was 103 degrees, which city officials said was incorrect due to a transcription error.

Spencer is a volunteer with the group Doctors Without Borders, and he returned on Oct. 17 to New York from Guinea, one of the three West African countries that are being overrun with the Ebola virus.

"He is a committed and responsible physician who always puts his patients first,'' officials from the New York Presbyterian Hospital stated. "He has not been to work at our hospital and has not seen any patients at our hospital since his return from overseas. Our thoughts are with him, and we wish him all the best at this time."

The outbreak has killed over 4,800 people. More than 440 health workers have contracted the virus; 50 percent did not survive.

Nina Pham, a nurse in Dallas who became ill while treating an Ebola-infected patient there, has recovered and was released from the hospital on Oct. 24.

Amber Vinson, a second nurse infected while treating the same patient, Thomas Eric Duncan from Liberia, has also been tested and found free of the disease.

In addition, reports are claiming that three others who had close contact with Spencer have been quarantined. His fiancée is in isolation at Bellevue, and two other friends who were in close contact are also quarantined, although details were not immediately available, according to a report in The New York TImes.

Right now, New Yorkers are on the edge, as they believe the disease may spread across the city, and they could be next. However, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio is pleading with residents to be calm, as Ebola can only be spread from the infected party's bodily fluids.

"We want to state at the outset, there is no reason for New Yorkers to be alarmed," said de Blasio, who was joined by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo at a news conference Thursday evening.

From our understanding, Spender was not feeling the symptoms while he was traveling around the city, so folks who might have sat near him in the train or anywhere else should feel safe.