NEW YORK: A New York City doctor who recently returned from Guinea has tested positive for Ebola, the first case of the deadly virus in the city and the fourth diagnosed in the United States, according to the health department.

Dr Spencer returned to the United States last week after treating Ebola patients in Guinea, where he worked for Doctors Without Borders. He was praised for getting treatment immediately upon showing symptoms, and health officials stressed that the country’s most populous city need not fear his wide-ranging travel in the days before his illness began.

New York’s Mayor Bill De Blasio and Governor Andrew Cuomo urged residents not to be alarmed by the doctor’s diagnosis even as they described him riding the subway, taking a cab and bowling since returning to New York from Guinea a week ago. 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. “New Yorkers who have not been exposed are not at all at risk.”

The doctor reported on Thursday morning coming down with a 100.3-degree fever and diarrhoea. He was being treated in an isolation ward at Manhattan’s Bellevue Hospital, a designated Ebola centre.

Published in Dawn, October 25th , 2014