A physician who recently came back to New York City from treating Ebola patients in infected West African countries has tested positive for the virus, preliminary test results show, according to Yahoo News .
He's the first confirmed case in New York City and the fourth in the Unites States. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention will do further testing.
Craig Spencer is a 33-year-old emergency room doctor that was in Guinea with Doctors Without Borders up until about a week ago. He reported a 103-degree fever and diarrhea on Thursday and was admitted to Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan. He was being treated in an isolation ward designed specifically for Ebola.
Authorities are tracing the doctor's steps to identify anyone he may have come in contact with him and the CDC has sent an Ebola task force to New York City.
Spencer allegedly took responsibility for taking a cab to a Brooklyn bowling alley and riding the subway before he started showing symptoms. His fiancee is also being monitored in a quarantine wing at the hospital while his Harlem apartment is roped off.
Columbia Presbyterian Hospital issued a statement calling the doctor a "dedicated humanitarian" who risked himself in an area of medical crisis to help others, CNN reported.
"He is a committed and responsible physician who always puts his patients first," the hospital statement said. "He has not been to work at our hospital and has not seen any patients at our hospital since his return from overseas."
Bellevue Hospital said in a statement the chances are very slim that an everyday New Yorker will contract Ebola, and added that bodily fluids of an infected person is what spreads the disease.
Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia have seen 5,000 deaths due to Ebola. But fears hit a peak once Thomas Eric Duncan was diagnosed with the virus in the United States in September. He died in Dallas on Oct. 8.
