Mayor de Blasio and Gov. Cuomo were scheduled to hold a news conference from Bellevue Hospital at approximately 9 p.m. tonight.
A doctor who recently returned from West Africa, where he was on an Ebola assignment for Doctors Without Borders, has tested positive for Ebola at Bellevue Hospital Center after reporting a fever and gastrointestinal symptoms, a source familiar with the results tells NBC 4 New York.
Craig Spencer marks the first Ebola case in New York City and the tri-state area.
Spencer, who law enforcement sources say flew into John F. Kennedy International Airport from Guinea Oct. 17, began to feel ill Thursday and called 911. He was transported from a building on 147th Street between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue to Bellevue, sources said. The city's Health Department said Spencer's temperature was 103 degrees.
Preliminary test results from one sample showed Spencer had Ebola, an official briefed on the matter said. A second sample will be flown to the CDC headquarters in Atlanta for another round of testing.
Officials decided to "conduct a test for the Ebola virus because of this patient’s recent travel history, pattern of symptoms, and past work," the Health Department said in a statement.
New York City is heavily dependent on mass transit, which presents a special challenge when dealing with a deadly contagious disease -- the subway is one place where so many of us gather and get close. So what is the MTA prepared to do for our protection? Andrew Siff reports.
A source familiar with the handling of Spencer's case said he told officials he had been out at The Gutter bowling alley in Brooklyn Wednesday night. Officials are now working to determine whether anyone else could have been exposed. Ebola is contracted from contact with bodily fluids of an infected person when the person is showing symptoms.
Mayor de Blasio said earlier the city was prepared to handle any potential case. "The patient is in good shape and has gone into great detail with our personnel" as it relates to his actions the last few days, "so we have a lot to work with," the mayor added.
Hundreds of emergency responders are trained on how to use personal protective equipment at Nassau University Medical Center on Long Island. Checkey Beckford reports (Published Friday, Oct 17, 2014)
Spencer is on the staff at New York-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center, but has not seen any patients there or been to work there since returning from overseas, according to the hospital.
The hospital said in a statement Spencer "went to an area of medical crisis to help a desperately underserved population. He is a committed and responsible physician who always put his patients first."
