A New York doctor with Ebola, whose case triggered a national debate in the US over mandatory quarantines for health workers returning from West Africa, was upgraded to stable condition on Saturday after nine days of treatment.
Craig Spencer, 33, the only person in the US currently being treated for Ebola, will remain in isolation, New York City’s Bellevue Hospital said in a statement, adding that he has improved to “stable” from “serious, but stable.”
Spencer was diagnosed with Ebola several days after returning to New York from Guinea, where he had worked with patients infected with the disease, which is known to have killed almost 5,000 people in West Africa.
His Oct. 23 diagnosis came after he rode the New York subway to eat out and go bowling with friends, spreading alarm about the possible spread of the virus in the US and leading states and federal health officials to issue a host of differing protocols for those considered at risk of developing the infection.
On a brighter note, Texas nurse Nina Pham, 26, who recovered from Ebola last week after treating a Liberian patient in a Dallas hospital, was reunited on Saturday with her dog, which had been quarantined for three weeks as a precaution.
The fate of her King Charles Spaniel, called Bentley, became a focus of public interest after officials in Madrid put down the dog of a Spanish nurse who contracted Ebola while caring for a patient.
“After I was diagnosed with Ebola, I didn’t know what would happen to Bentley and if he would have the virus,” Pham told reporters at a Dallas animal shelter. “I was frightened that I might not know what happened to my best friend.”
In the biggest tussle so far, a Maine judge on Friday rejected a state request to quarantine nurse Kaci Hickox, who treated Ebola patients in Sierra Leone.
Hickox, who has tested negative for Ebola, fought a heated public battle over what she considered draconian measures to isolate her for 21 days in a case that highlighted the dilemma over how to balance public health needs and personal liberty.
Experts say Ebola is difficult to catch and is spread through direct contact with bodily fluids from an infected person. It is not transmitted by asymptomatic people.
Canada and Australia have barred entry for citizens from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, where the disease is widespread, and some US politicians have called for a similar ban by the US.
In Oregon, test results were awaited for a woman with a fever who was hospitalized in an isolation unit on Friday after returning from West Africa, local health officials said. She had not come into known contact with Ebola patients while in Africa, the officials added.
US public health experts, the UN, federal officials and US President Barack Obama have expressed concern that state quarantines for returning doctors and nurses could discourage potential medical volunteers from fighting the outbreak at its source in West Africa.
Obama on Saturday spoke by telephone with US service members in Liberia and Senegal taking part in the US military mission to contain the outbreak in West Africa, the White House said in a statement.
In the call, Obama underscored that the US’ strategy to tackle Ebola in West Africa is the most effective way to curb the spread of the disease and protect Americans from it, the statement said.
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