Hospital officials say the condition of a New York doctor who became infected with Ebola while treating patients in Guinea has been upgraded from serious but stable condition to stable condition.
The New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation issued the upgrade for Dr. Craig Spencer on Saturday morning.
The agency runs Bellevue Hospital Center, where Spencer has been undergoing treatment since he was brought there nine days ago.
The HHC has said Spencer is receiving therapies that have been effective in treating Ebola patients at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta and at the Nebraska Medical Center.
Spencer is the only confirmed Ebola patient in New York.
His case prompted governors in New York and New Jersey to take the controversial step of issuing a mandatory quarantine for health workers returning from West Africa. Health experts have warned that such measures are not based on science and may be dangerously counterproductive, as they dissuade volunteers from going to the affected region to help stop the outbreak.
On Friday, a Maine judge rejected the state’s request to impose a mandatory quarantine on nurse Kaci Hickox, who recently returned from treating Ebola patients in Sierra Leone. In his ruling, the judge thanked Hickox for honorable service and wrote that “people are acting out of fear and that this fear is not entirely rational.”