Ebola-Infected NYC Doctor Will Leave Hospital
— -- New York doctor Craig Spencer, who is being treated for Ebola, will leave Bellevue hospital Tuesday morning, officials said Monday.
Spencer, 33, has been at Bellevue since being diagnosed with Ebola last month after treating Ebola patients in Guinea.
"After a rigorous course of treatment and testing, Dr. Craig Spencer – the patient admitted and diagnosed with Ebola Disease Virus at HHC Bellevue Hospital Center – has been declared free of the virus. Dr. Spencer poses no public health risk and will be discharged from the hospital tomorrow, Tuesday, November 11," the NYC Health and Hospitals Corp. said in a statement Monday.
Last week, the hospital said Spencer was continuing to improve and has been playing the banjo in his hospital room.
Spencer tested positive for Ebola after treating patients in the West African nation of Guinea with the group Doctors Without Borders. He has been in an isolation room at Bellevue Hospital since Oct. 23.
Spencer is the only confirmed case of Ebola in New York City. His fiancee, Morgan Dixon, is in quarantine at the couple's Manhattan apartment. Quarantine has been lifted for friends who had socialized with the couple.
As of last week, 357 people in New York City were being actively monitored for possible Ebola, most of them travelers who arrived within the past 21 days from Guinea, Liberia or Sierra Leone, the three Ebola-affected countries.
The list also includes emergency medical staff who transported Spencer to Bellevue and those caring for him plus laboratory workers who conducted his blood test. The news of Spencer's infection prompted New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie to announce a mandatory 21-day quarantine for travelers who have come in close contact with Ebola patients.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
