Ebola Outbreak: Doctor at New York hospital tests positive for Ebola Virus

A physician who recently returned to New York from Ebola-ravaged west Africa has tested positive for the disease, officials announced.

Craig Spencer, 33, a doctor who lives in the Harlem neighbourhood of the city, was taken to hospital in New York on Thursday after displaying symptoms consistent with those caused by Ebola, including a fever of 100.3F (38C) – lower than the 103F (39.5C) that was initial reported by health officials.

A preliminary test on Thursday confirmed that Spencer, who arrived back in New York from Guinea on 17 October, has the virus. Federal officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which has sent a team to New York City to assist city and state officials in the response, will carry out a further test to confirm the result.

Officials told a press conference at Bellevue hospital on Thursday that they were monitoring four people with whom Spencer had contact. His fiancée, Morgan Dixon, and two friends had been quarantined, while the fourth person, a taxi driver, was not considered to be at risk.

Spencer took several trips on the New York subway in the past week, visited the Gutter bowling alley in the Williamsburg area of Brooklyn on Wednesday night and took an Uber cab, all before he began to display symptoms, officials said.

Credit: Jessica Glenza/Nicky Woolf/theGuardian