New York confirms first Ebola case

NEW YORK-

A doctor who recently returned to New York after treating Ebola patients in Guinea tested positive on Thursday for the deadly virus, the first confirmed case in the city, officials said.

The 33-year-old — identified by US media as Craig Spencer — has been placed in isolation, in what is the fourth case of Ebola diagnosed in the United States.

He returned recently to America’s largest city after working in West Africa for the charity Doctors Without Borders.

“Today testing confirmed that a patient here in New York City had tested positive for Ebola,” said New York Mayor Bill de Blasio.

The mayor and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo sought to reassure the city’s eight million residents that Ebola was extremely difficult to catch.

“We want to state at the outset, (this) is no reason for New Yorkers to be alarmed. Ebola is an extremely hard disease to contract. It is transmitted only through contact with an infected person’s blood or other bodily fluids,” said de Blasio.

Officials said the patient completed his work in Guinea on October 12 and left the West African country on October 14 via Europe.

He arrived back in the United States at New York’s JFK airport on October 17.