US nurse quarantined for Ebola to sue, lawyer says

A nurse held in quarantine for Ebola monitoring in New Jersey plans to file a federal lawsuit challenging her confinement as a violation of her civil rights, her lawyer said yesterday.

Norman Siegel, a well-known civil rights lawyer, said that Kaci Hickox's confinement after she returned from west Africa raised "serious constitutional and civil liberties issues," given that she remains asymptomatic and has not tested positive for Ebola.

“We’re not going to dispute that the government has, under certain circumstances, the right to issue a quarantine,” he said. “The policy is overly broad when applied to her.”

Quarantines imposed on travellers from Ebola-affected west African nations are a “little bit draconian,” a senior US health official said yesterday, warning new rules by three states could discourage medical workers from helping fight the epidemic.

Mandatory

New York, New Jersey and

Illinois

imposed 21-day mandatory quarantines in the last two days for anyone arriving with a high risk of having contracted Ebola in

Sierra Leone

, Liberia and

Guinea

– the three African countries where the epidemic has killed nearly 5,000 people.

New York governor Andrew Cuomo and New Jersey governor Chris Christie, who announced the new policy on Friday, are already under pressure from the White House to reverse the directives, the New York Times reported.

The quarantine rules are an "unco-ordinated, very hurried, an immediate reaction to the New York City case that doesn't comport with science," an unnamed administration official told the Times.

The source was referring to Dr Craig Spencer, who was diagnosed with Ebola after he returned from treating patients in Guinea. The doctor, now in isolation, moved freely around the city before he had symptoms. Doctors say he was not contagious at that stage but his actions have raised public concern.

‘Unintended consequences’

“I don’t want to be directly criticising the decision that was made but we have to be careful that there are unintended consequences,” Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told NBC’s

Meet the Press

.

He called the measures, which go well beyond federal guidelines, “a little bit draconian.”

“The best way to stop this epidemic is to help the people in west Africa. We do that by sending people over there, not only from the USA but from other places,” said Mr Fauci.

Nurse Ms Hickox, the first person isolated under the new orders, strongly criticised the quarantine policy, describing hours of questioning and being transferred to a hospital isolation tent.

Yesterday she told CNN she failed to understand the rationale for the policy. She was particularly scathing about Mr Christie’s remarks that she was “obviously ill” when she arrived at Newark airport.

"First of all I don't think he's a doctor and secondly he's never laid eyes on me," she said. "I am completely healthy and with no symptoms," Ms Hickox told CNN. – (Reuters)