Craig Spencer, while working in Guinea during the West African Ebola outbreak in 2014, returned to the United States before exhibiting symptoms. He attributes his recovery to the care he received at New York’s Bellevue Hospital.
Currently an emergency medicine physician and associate professor at Brown University’s School of Public Health, Spencer would face different circumstances if he contracted Ebola during the present outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda. Even if he had high-risk contact with Ebola patients, he would not be permitted to return to the U.S. for treatment or isolation.
On Thursday, officials clarified that Americans who contract Ebola will not be treated in the United States. Instead, they will be relocated to unspecified locations in Europe. An anonymous official disclosed that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the State Department are collaborating to locate tertiary care facilities in Europe ready to treat affected Americans. This has already been the case once.
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