Craig Spencer, the New York City doctor who contracted Ebola while treating patients in Guinea, will be released tomorrow from Bellevue Hospital Center in Manhattan and is free of the virus, the New York Times reported, citing unnamed people familiar with his treatment.
It’s unclear whether Spencer will return to his apartment in northern Manhattan, where his fiancee is under quarantine, the newspaper said. Two of Spencer’s friends who had been quarantined have since been released.
Ian Michaels, a spokesman for the hospital, told Bloomberg News he couldn’t confirm the report.
Spencer, 33, has served as a volunteer with Doctors Without Borders, an aid group that has sent medical professionals to fight the outbreak at its West African source. He fell ill on Oct. 23, six days after returning to New York from the outbreak zone, and was rushed to Bellevue and put in a special isolation unit.
About nine hours later, officials confirmed the infection. His treatment included brincidofovir, an experimental drug made by Chimerix Inc., as well as a blood transfusion from another Ebola survivor, which can boost virus-fighting antibodies in a patient.
Thomas Eric Duncan, the Liberian national who died from Ebola on Oct. 8 in Dallas, is the only death from the disease in the U.S. Seven other Ebola patients treated at various American hospitals have survived. They include two Dallas nurses infected by Duncan, several American aid workers and a TV cameraman who got sick in West Africa and were flown home.
The Ebola outbreak, concentrated in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, has infected more than 13,000 worldwide and killed more than 4,800, according to the World Health Organization. There is no approved cure for the disease. Current standard care involves supporting the patient and using antibiotics to fight off secondary infections.
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