Washington, Oct 30 (IANS/EFE) US nurse Kaci Hickox, who was quarantined in a New Jersey hospital upon her return from West Africa despite the fact that she tested negative for Ebola, has said that she is challenging the obligatory quarantine imposed on her in the state of Maine.
“I don’t plan on sticking to the guidelines,” Hickox, 33, told NBC’s “Today” show Wednesday. “I remain appalled by these home quarantine policies that have been forced upon me even though I am in perfectly good health.”
If the quarantine imposed on her by Maine, which forces her to remain inside her house until Nov 10, is not lifted Thursday, Hickox is threatening to go to court to fight for her “freedom”, she said in the interview.
According to NBC, a state police officer Wednesday morning was stationed in front of Hickox’s home in Fort Kent, Maine, and was ready to arrest her if she left the house.
Hickox was the first person to be affected by the special measures adopted by New York, New Jersey and other states to prevent the spread of Ebola but those measures have been criticised by doctors and federal officials, who claim that they have no scientific basis.
Last week, Hickox returned to the US from Sierra Leone, one of the countries hardest hit by the Ebola epidemic and where she had been caring for people sick with the virus, and after landing at the Newark airport she was forced to remain in an outdoor isolation tent with medical equipment set up at University Hospital in Newark, New Jersey, and required to begin a quarantine period of 21 days.
In an allusion to these obligatory quarantines, although without mentioning them specifically, President Barack Obama Tuesday said that measures that “discourage” doctors and other healthcare workers from volunteering to travel to Africa to help in the fight against Ebola should be avoided.
–IANS/EFE
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