US judge lifts quarantine on nurse who treated Ebola patients

A US judge has lifted a quarantine on an American

nurse, ruling in favour of the 33-year-old woman whose health has become a battleground between government and state officials on how best to respond to Ebola.

Easing restrictions he set the previous day, Maine judge Charles LaVerdiere ruled in a temporary order that Kaci Hickox, who returned from treating Ebola patients in Africa last week, should not be isolated at home.

Siding largely with US government guidelines and against state officials, Judge LaVerdiere, the chief judge for Maine’s district courts, limited Ms Hickox’s movement, ordering her to be monitored on a daily basis for any sign of the deadly virus.

He removed earlier court restrictions on her going out in public or being within three feet of other people until there is a full court hearing on her case. But he still must inform public health officials of her movements in her home town near Maine's northern border with Canada.

The judge said that Maine state officials had not proven that curtailing Ms Hickox’s movements was required to protect others.

“The court is fully aware that people are acting out of fear and that this fear is not entirely rational,” he said. “However, whether that fear is rational or not, it is present and it is real,” he added, advising the nurse to show a “full understanding of human nature” and guide herself accordingly.

Sierra Leone

Ms Hickox’s lawyers deemed the court ruling a victory for their client, who returned eight days ago from tending to Ebola patients in Sierra Leone.

Maine state officials went to court on Thursday to enforce a quarantine keeping Ms Hickox in her home for the 21-day incubation period when Ebola can remain in the system without signs of illness.

The nurse, claiming that she had shown no symptoms of the disease, had defied the imposed isolation by leaving her home on Wednesday night to speak with reporters outside and by taking a bike ride near her home on Thursday.

Health officials have said that Ebola can only spread through contact with the bodily fluids of an infected patient.

At odds

The Obama administration and state governors, most notably Republican

Chris Christie

of

New Jersey

, are at odds over restrictions being imposed by some states on health workers returning from Sierra Leone,

Liberia

and

Guinea

, the three worst-hit countries.

The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, a US government body, has recommended daily monitoring rather than quarantine to stem a disease that has killed almost 5,000 people in west Africa. There have been just nine cases of Ebola in the US, and one death.

On a visit to Kenya yesterday, United Nations secretary general Ban Ki-moon warned that quarantines imposed on returning health workers were hindering aid efforts when more help was needed.

Samantha Power, the Dublin-born US ambassador to the UN, said she was self-monitoring for Ebola after returning from a visit to west Africa aimed at redirecting interest from fears about the disease spreading in the US to how the crisis has affected the region.

She posted photographs of herself online being screened by an airport official who checked her temperature as she arrived back in New York on Thursday. Speaking about the dangers of irrational fears of Ebola spreading, she said: “We went through this with HIV/Aids. We have to tell the story of where risk does and doesn’t exist.”