NYC Ebola Doctor Improves as 357 in City Are Monitored

By Kelly Gilblom

Photographer: Kena Betancur/Getty Images

Police officers stand guard in front Bellevue Hospital where Dr. Craig Spencer who was... Read More

Craig Spencer, the New York City doctor who contracted Ebola while caring for patients in Guinea, is improving and remains in stable condition, health authorities said.
Two of the three people Spencer had close contact with about the time he fell ill last month have been released from quarantine, while one remains confined, city officials said yesterday in a statement.
One of those who had been under quarantine was released yesterday and “poses no public health threat and is showing no symptoms,” health officials said in the statement. “This person’s daily movements in New York City will no longer be restricted, and the individual will be
assessed twice each day by Health Department staff.”

The Ebola Scourge

As part of a nationwide effort to stop or quickly identify new infections, the city said it is monitoring 357 individuals. Most are people who recently arrived in New York from Ebola-affected countries. The group includes emergency medical workers who transported Spencer to Bellevue Hospital Center.

Related Slideshow: Liberia: Ebola's Ground Zero

New York is one of five points of entry the U.S. has designated for travelers from nations with Ebola outbreaks. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said that anyone coming from those areas will be monitored for three weeks to check if they develop symptoms.

Under Watch

The number of people under watch in New York will fluctuate as health officials learn more about possible exposures to the virus, new travelers arrive or depart, or as their monitoring period ends, city officials said.
New York, New Jersey and Illinois have said they will implement mandatory quarantines for anyone who arrives from Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, where the outbreak is concentrated, and is at high risk of being infected. Pennsylvania, Maryland, Georgia and Virginia actively monitor people returning from the region.

The CDC recommended tighter screening procedures after a Dallas hospital failed to identify an infected Liberian man when he arrived at the emergency room in September. The man, Thomas Eric Duncan, was sent away from the hospital, only to return days later in an ambulance. He died on Oct. 8, and two nurses who cared for him were infected.
The Ebola outbreak has infected about 13,000 people and killed almost 5,000. There is no approved cure for the disease. Current standard care involves supporting the patient and using antibiotics to fight secondary infections.

Spencer, 33, worked as a volunteer for Doctors Without Borders, an aid group that has sent medical professionals to fight the outbreak at its source. He fell ill on Oct. 23, six days after returning to New York, and was rushed from his apartment in northern Manhattan to Bellevue and put in a special isolation unit.
His treatment has included an experimental drug made by Chimerix Inc., brincidofovir, as well as a blood transfusion from another Ebola survivor, which can boost virus-fighting antibodies in a patient.