A nurse quarantined in New Jersey while being monitored for symptoms of Ebola will be allowed to return to her home in Maine, state health department officials said Monday.
Kaci Hickox, who last week returned from West Africa, where she was treating Ebola patients, has been isolated in a tent, despite showing no symptoms of the disease.
“After consulting with her, she has requested transport to Maine, and that transport will be arranged via a private carrier not via mass transit or commercial aircraft,” a New Jersey Department of Health statement said. “Health officials in Maine have been notified of her arrangements and will make a determination under their own laws on her treatment when she arrives.”
New Jersey and New York in recent days made the decision that people returning from Ebola-stricken countries must be subjected to a mandatory 21-day quarantine. The move came after a New York City doctor who was treating Ebola patients in Africa was diagnosed with the disease after being out in public for several days.
But officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say the mandatory quarantine is unnecessary and that self-monitoring is sufficient.
Hickox arrived Friday at Newark Liberty International Airport from Sierra Leone, where she was treating Ebola patients with Doctors Without Borders. Health officials monitoring incoming passengers from West Africa detected Hickox had a low-grade fever, but it later disappeared. She was isolated in a tent without running water and has been complaining about her treatment.
She has tested negative for Ebola, health officials said.
New Jersey health department officials defended the treatment of Hickox, saying she “was cared for in a monitored area of the hospital with an advanced tenting system that was recently toured and evaluated by the CDC.” Officials adde, “every effort was made to insure that she remained comfortable with access to a computer, cell phone, reading material and nourishment of choice.”
