A Phoenix man who became ill after returning this week from Sierra Leone, one of the three West African nations hardest hit by an Ebola outbreak, was taken to a hospital on Friday to check if he was infected with the virus, officials said.

The 32-year-old man, who was not identified, was transported to the Maricopa Integrated Health System in Phoenix for evaluation after complaining of sickness including dry-heaving and diarrhea, Phoenix Fire Department spokesman Mark Vanacore said.

Dr. Robert Fromm, the hospital system’s chief medical officer, said it seemed unlikely the man was infected with Ebola but was undergoing tests out of “an abundance of caution.”

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New York City paid a con man who defrauded distressed homeowners out of millions of dollars during the housing crisis nearly $50,000 dollars to decontaminate the apartment of its first Ebola patient, BuzzFeed News is reporting.

The city awarded Sal Pane and his Bio-Recovery the emergency contract to disinfect Dr. Craig Spencer’s Harlem apartment after the physician was diagnosed with the deadly disease in October.

But Pane’s clean-up truck bore permit numbers that belonged to a dead man, Buzzfeed said Thursday in a lengthy report. The website said the dead man’s grieving sister was duped by Pane into selling him the truck and the company’s name.

The dead man, Ron Gospodarski, ran a reputable company that had years of experience cleaning up anthrax sites and other danger zones. Buzzfeed said its investigation showed that at the height of the Ebola scare in New York, Pane went on TV claiming that experience as his own.

“Twenty-seven years” of experience he told one radio station. “Not my first rodeo.” Buzzfeed said that 27 years ago Pane was 4 years old.

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When Martin Salia’s Ebola test came back negative, his friends and colleagues threw their arms around him. They shook his hand. They patted him on the back. They removed their protective gear and cried.

But when his symptoms remained nearly a week later, Salia took another test, on Nov. 10. This one came back positive, sending the Sierra Leonean doctor with ties to Maryland on a desperate, belated quest for treatment and forcing the colleagues who had embraced him into quarantine.

“We were celebrating. If the test says you are Ebola-free, we assume you are Ebola-free,” said Komba Songu M’Briwa, who cared for Salia at the Hastings Ebola Treatment Center in Freetown. “Then everything fell apart.”
Salia is now in critical condition at the Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, his family left to wonder what would have happened if he had received earlier treatment.

His wife, Isatu, lives in New Carrollton, and they have two children, 12 and 20, also living in the United States. He has been a visitor to their Maryland home but has devoted most of his time to his medical work in Freetown.

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The number of people under “active monitoring” for Ebola symptoms has increased from 117 on Monday to 357 people Wednesday, health officials said.

The vast majority of those being monitored arrived in New York City within the past 21 days from the three Ebola-affected countries, the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation said in a statement.

Others being monitored are the staff caring for Dr. Craig Spencer, the physician being treated for Ebola at Bellevue Hospital, the lab workers who conducted his blood tests and the FDNY EMTs who transported the doctor.
All of those being monitored showed no symptoms but are being checked on out of “an abundance of caution,” the statement said.

One of the people under quarantine for coming into contact with Spencer will now be also subject to active monitoring because “the individual poses no public threat and is showing no symptoms,” health officials said. The person’s movements will not be restricted, but the person will be assessed twice a day by city health workers.

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