NYC doctor, free of Ebola, to be released

A New York emergency room doctor who was diagnosed with Ebola after working with patients in West Africa has recovered and is scheduled to be released from the hospital on Tuesday, health officials said.

The city Department of Health said Monday in a statement that Dr. Craig Spencer "has been declared free of the virus."

Spencer tested positive for the virus Oct. 23, just days after returning from treating patients in Guinea with Doctors Without Borders.

The 33-year-old has been treated in a specially designed isolation unit at Manhattan's Bellevue Hospital, a designated Ebola treatment center. His condition was upgraded from serious to stable last week and he was feeling well enough to request an exercise bike and a banjo.

His fiancée and two friends were initially quarantined but were released and are being actively monitored along with hundreds of others.

Spencer is expected to issue a statement but not take questions when he's released from the hospital.

News of Spencer's infection set many New Yorkers on edge, particularly after details emerged that he rode the subway, went bowling and dined out in the days before he tested positive.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie responded by announcing a mandatory 21-day quarantine for travelers who have come in close contact with Ebola patients.

Health officials have stressed that Ebola is not airborne and can only be spread through direct contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person who is showing symptoms.

Mayor Bill de Blasio and Cuomo had urged residents not to be alarmed by the doctor's Ebola diagnosis, even as they described him riding the subway and taking a cab. De Blasio said all city officials followed "clear and strong" protocols in their handling and treatment of him.

"We want to state at the outset that New Yorkers have no reason to be alarmed," de Blasio said when Spencer was diagnosed. "New Yorkers who have not been exposed are not at all at risk."

Elsewhere, North Carolina health officials said on Monday a missionary doctor deemed to be at "some risk" for developing the disease after returning from Liberia had been placed under a 21-day quarantine.

It was the second quarantine for Dr. John Fankhauser, 52, a family physician from Ventura, California, who officials said has shown no signs of the virus since arriving in Charlotte, said the Christian mission group SIM USA.

In Maine, the nurse who treated Ebola patients in West Africa and publicly fought quarantine orders in New Jersey and Maine after returning to the United States last month planned to move from her home after her quarantine expired on Monday, according to the Portland Press-Herald.

The nurse, Kaci Hickox, and her boyfriend, Ted Wilbur, said they had faced some harassment since her arrival in Fort Kent and wanted to move someplace they could live quietly.

The Ebola epidemic in West Africa has killed thousands of people, but only a handful of people have been diagnosed in the United States. In the U.S., the first person diagnosed with the disease was a Liberian man, who fell ill days after arriving in Dallas and later died, becoming the only fatality. None of his relatives who had close contact with him became sick. Two nurses who treated him were infected and were briefly hospitalized.

Wire services