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 The settlement, filed in nurse Kaci Hickox's home town of Fort Kent,
in Maine's far north, keeps in effect through Nov. 10 the terms of
an order issued by a Maine judge on Friday.
Hickox returned to the United States last month after treating Ebola
patients in Sierra Leone and was quarantined in a tent outside a
hospital in New Jersey for four days despite showing no symptoms
before being driven to her home in Maine.
She sharply criticized the way both New Jersey Governor Chris
Christie and Maine Governor Paul LePage responded to her case.
Christie and LePage have defended how they handled it.
A handful of states have imposed mandatory quarantines on health
workers returning from three Ebola-ravaged West African countries,
Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, while the federal government is
wary of discouraging potential medical volunteers.
President Barack Obama will meet with his national security and
health advisers on Tuesday for an update on the Ebola response.
The most deadly outbreak of Ebola on record has killed 4,951 people,
mainly in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone.
"The governor was outspoken in his views on the case. He was
speaking for people in the state that had real fear about the
risks," said Eric Saunders, an attorney for Hickox. "It's hard to
deny the fear and the safety concerns. But at the same time, we have
to bear in mind what the law and the science says."
The Ebola virus is transmitted in bodily fluids, such as blood or
vomit, of people showing symptoms of the disease, according to
medical experts. It is not airborne.
Representatives for both LePage and the Maine attorney general
declined to comment.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon on Monday warned against
"unnecessarily" strict restrictions on healthcare workers, saying
their efforts were critical to stopping Ebola's spread in West
Africa.
However, nearly 75 percent of Americans surveyed in a Reuters/Ipsos
poll believe medics returning to the United States after treating
people with Ebola should be quarantined, and 80 percent believe the
healthcare workers' movements should be controlled.
NORTH CAROLINA MONITORING
A patient being monitored in North Carolina for Ebola after arriving
in the United States last week from Liberia has tested negative for
the disease, state health officials said on Monday, adding that the
results still need to be confirmed.
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The patient, who arrived at New Jersey's Newark Liberty
International Airport on Friday and developed a fever on Sunday in
North Carolina, will continue to be monitored in isolation at Duke
University Hospital in Durham, officials said.
The person, who was not identified, had no symptoms upon arrival in
the United States and had no known exposure to Ebola in Liberia, the
department said.
U.S. health care providers have been on heightened alert for
potential Ebola cases, and officials in North Carolina said they had
been working since the summer to prepare for the possibility of the
virus being diagnosed in the state.
In Oregon, a Liberian woman hospitalized last week over Ebola fears
has tested negative for the virus, a state health officer said
Monday. Five other people who recently arrived from West Africa were
being monitored, the officer said.
Some states have restricted the movement of people returning to the
United States from the stricken West African nations beyond
guidelines from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Only one person in the United States is currently being treated for
Ebola, a New York doctor, who is in stable condition.
(Additional reporting by Chris Michaud and Laila Kearney in New York
and Victoria Cavaliere in Seattle; Writing by Scott Malone; Editing
by Susan Heavey, James Dalgleish and Lisa Shumaker)
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