A doctor in New York City, who had recently returned to the U.S. after working in Guinea, has Ebola, health officials said Thursday night. Craig Spencer, 33, is an emergency medicine physician at New York Presbyterian—Columbia University Medical Center.
Spencer, who had been treating Ebola patients while working with the aid group Doctors Without Borders, was placed in a quarantined unit in Bellevue Hospital on Thursday.
Hoping not to repeat the same missteps made in Dallas, city officials jumped into action. They activated an emergency operations center in Brooklyn to track down anyone who might have come into contact with Spencer.
Speaking in both English and Spanish, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio delivered a calming message to the city, the most populous in the nation.
“There is no reason for New Yorkers to be alarmed,” he said. “Ebola is very difficult to contract.”
“New Yorkers who have not been exposed to a patient’s bodily fluids are not at all at risk,” he said.
“We have been preparing for months for the threat posed by Ebola. We have clear and strong protocols which are being scrupulously followed."
CDC Director Tom Frieden, MD, said that the agency had been in close contact with Bellevue since before Spencer was admitted, helping that facility prepare for the possibility of caring for Ebola patients.
Frieden said an additional strike team of CDC Ebola response experts was on the way to assist the medical staff who are caring for the doctor. In fact, according to a CDC statement, a second CDC team of Ebola experts was already in New York. That team was "assessing hospital readiness to receive Ebola patients, including Bellevue." That team determined the hospital was trained in proper protocols and prepared to treat Ebola patients, the agency said in a statement.
De Blasio said other hospitals in the city are also prepared in case more patients come forward.
“We had the advantage of learning from the Dallas experience,” said New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
Cuomo said officials identified four people Spencer may have had close contact with when he was experiencing symptoms. One of those people is his fiancee. All are being quarantined, the governor said.
source : NYC Doctor Diagnosed With Ebola
