New York doctor who survived Ebola says he fears for healthcare workers treating the virus

"“Healthcare workers are the group that I'm really concerned about because they had very close contact with people when they're most contagious, particularly around the time of folks' death,” Dr. Craig Spencer, an emergency room physician and public health professor at Brown University, told CBS News on Friday."

"Authorities in eastern Congo's Ituri province are contending with a new Ebola outbreak that is suspected in at least 246 cases, including 65 deaths, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention announced Friday. This is the 17th Ebola outbreak in the Congo since 1976. One of the worst outbreaks killed more than 11,000 people between 2014 and 2016."

"“What we know very well that the country has experience, but the region where it is happening is highly volatile with the humanitarian situation going on and the population moving around from South Sudan to Uganda and other parts,” Dr. Abdi Rahman Mahamud, World Health Organization director of health emergency alert and response operations, said during a news conference Friday."

"Spencer contracted Ebola while working with the nonprofit group Doctors Without Borders in Guinea in September 2014. He was in Guinea for three weeks working with Ebola patients. When he returned to New York City the following month, arriving home on Oct. 17, 2014, he said he began to self-monitor, taking his temperature twice a day. Then on Oct. 23, 2014, just under a week after returning home, he developed a fever and was rushed by ambulance to Bellevue Hospital, a designated Ebola treatment center at the time."

A New York emergency physician who previously survived Ebola expressed concern for healthcare workers treating the latest outbreak in eastern Congo. He said healthcare workers have the closest contact with patients during peak contagiousness, particularly around the time of death. Authorities in Ituri province reported a suspected outbreak involving at least 246 cases and 65 deaths. The outbreak is the 17th Ebola outbreak in Congo since 1976, following earlier large epidemics. The World Health Organization noted that the country has experience with Ebola, but the affected region is highly volatile, with humanitarian pressures and population movement across borders. The physician previously contracted Ebola in Guinea in 2014 while working with Doctors Without Borders, then developed symptoms shortly after returning to New York and received treatment at an Ebola-designated hospital.

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