Ebola Outbreak: US Doctor with Ebola Like Symptoms Quarantined

A New York doctor who has returned from West Africa with "Ebola-like" symptoms, is being tested for the disease it has been confirmed.

The 33-year-old doctor identified as Craig Spencer from Detroit, Michigan, was working in the ebola stricken region with Doctors Without Borders.

He returned to the US in the last 21 days. He initially quarantined himself after developing nausea.

FDNY hazardous materials specialists sealed-off his apartment on W. 147th St. and removed the doctor, clad in a protective suit and was then admitted to the Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan with gastrointestinal symptoms.

Bellevue said in a statement: "The Health Department's team of disease detectives immediately began to actively trace all of the patient's contacts to identify anyone who may be at potential risk."

Test results confirming whether or not he has contracted the deadly virus are expected in the next 12 hours, the city's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene said in a statement.

City health workers are now trying to track down anybody he might have been in contact with since returning home from Africa.

Spencer posted a photo of himself wearing protective gear on Facebook on Sept. 18 while in the Belgian capital of Brussels, where most U.S. travelers to Guinea Sierra Leone and Liberia catch their connecting flights.

"Off to Guinea with Doctors Without Borders (MSF)," the caption reads. "Please support organizations that are sending support or personnel to West Africa, and help combat one of the worst public health and humanitarian disasters in recent history."

A Spanish nurse, Teresa Romero, who is the first known person to have contracted ebola outside West Africa, was recently cleared of the disease after tests confirmed she was no longer infected with the deadly virus.

Ebola is spread via contact with infected bodily fluids. The disease has killed more than 4,500 people in West Africa. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) warned that if no effective measures were taken to stop the outbreak, between 550,000 and 1.4 million people could contract the ebola virus by January 2015 in Sierra Leone and Liberia alone.

According to the World Health Organization, around £614m is needed to prevent the outbreak from turning into a human catastrophe.

UK Health Minister Jeremy Hunt warned that the outbreak could become as serious as the Aids epidemic if it is not contained.