Bellevue Hospital Center has a room set aside to handle a potential Ebola patient. (credit: Mona Rivera/1010 WINS) Bellevue Hospital Center has a room set aside to handle a potential Ebola patient. (credit: Mona Rivera/1010 WINS)

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) — On the same day that Texas Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan died, New York City hospitals were testing their readiness in the battle against the virus.

As WCBS 880’s Paul Murnane reported, fake Ebola patients are being sent to local emergency rooms.

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The pretend patients complain of fever, headaches and abdominal pain — Ebola syptoms that should trigger the question “have you traveled to West Africa?”

The testing has been going on for two to three weeks, the city’s Health and Hospitals Corp. said.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told WCBS 880 he believes a large Ebola outbreak here is “extraordinarily unlikely.”