US doctor Craig Spencer, who had contracted Ebola in Guinea, has been released from hospital after recovering. There is now nobody in the US still being treated for the disease.Spencer, 33, appeared before reporters along with New York Mayor Bill de Blasio at Bellevue Hospital Centre in Manhattan Tuesday, where he had been admitted Oct 23 with symptoms of Ebola."Today I am healthy and no longer infectious," Spencer said at a press conference with city authorities and the medical team who attended him."My early detection, reporting and now recovery from Ebola speaks of the effectiveness of the protocols that are in place for health staff returning from West Africa."He also said he was proud to have treated Ebola patients in Guinea and urged the focus to return to them.
Spencer returned to New York Oct 17 and six days later began showing symptoms of the disease, whereupon he was transported immediately to Bellevue Hospital Centre and quarantined in a special isolation unit.He was somewhat pale when he left the hospital Tuesday, but he appeared joyful and said that the 3,500 health professionals who are fighting Ebola in West Africa -- where some 5,000 people have already died from the disease - were "the true heroes".The New York mayor welcomed Spencer back to "normal life", called him a "hero" and emphasised his calmness and patience since he suspected that he might have become infected.Spencer had been the last of the nine Ebola cases in the US to still be in the hospital. Some of them were diagnosed in West Africa and transported to this country for treatment and others became infected here.Of the nine, the only patient to die was Liberian Thomas Duncan, who passed away in Dallas Oct 8 shortly after he was diagnosed with the disease, which he had contracted in Africa.