Worker Who Treated Ebola Hospitalized in NJ, Has Fever

A healthcare worker who recently treated Ebola patients in West Africa was placed in isolation at a New Jersey hospital on Friday after developing a fever.

The worker, a staffer for Medecins Sans Frontieres, or Doctors Without Borders, was placed into quarantine Friday upon arrival at New Jersey’s Newark International Airport, a day after a New York City doctor who also worked with the group overseas tested positive for the deadly disease.

Medecins Sans Frontieres confirmed the worker is one of its staffers. The worker initially had no symptoms when placed in quarantine, but developed a fever Friday night and was placed in isolation at University Hospital in Newark, the New Jersey Department of Health said in a statement.

The potential new case comes after Dr. Craig Spencer became ill Thursday in New York City and later tested positive for the deadly disease, which has killed more than 4,800 people worldwide, mostly in the West African countries of Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone. Officials in New York City are retracing Spencer’s movements before he came down with a 100.3-degree fever Thursday morning and was taken by a specialized team to Bellevue Hospital. He was in stable condition Friday.

Friday’s quarantine comes after the governors of New Jersey and New York imposed rules that any doctor returning to those states after treating Ebola patients in West Africa would have to sit out a mandatory 21-day quarantine, whether they show symptoms or not. Also Friday, the first nurse infected with the deadly disease in the U.S., Nina Pham, was declared Ebola-free and was released from a National Institutes of Health medical center.