A Maine judge has imposed limited restrictions on an American nurse who treated Ebola patients in Sierra Leone and rejected a bid by state officials for more stringent measures.

The confrontation between Kaci Hickox and officials in the state of Maine has become the focal point of a dispute pitting several US states opting for strict quarantines against the federal government, which opposes such measures.

Hickox’s lawyer called the ruling a “terrific win” and Maine Governor Paul LePage said that while he was disappointed, the state would abide by the judge’s order.

Hickox, 33, tested negative for Ebola after returning from working for Doctors Without Borders in Sierra Leone. She also objected when the state of New Jersey put her into isolation when she arrived at Newark airport.

Charles LaVerdiere, chief judge of Maine District Court, in an earlier temporary order dated on Thursday had instructed Hickox to avoid “public places” like shopping centres and maintain a three-foot (1m) distance from others at the state’s request.

That came hours after she defied Maine officials, left her home and went for a bike ride with her boyfriend.

Yesterday, after a hearing held by telephone, LaVerdiere said that Hickox only would have to continue direct monitoring of her health, co-ordinate travel plans with health officials and report any symptoms.

“As governor, I have done everything I can to protect the health and safety of Mainers. The judge has eased restrictions with this ruling and I believe it is unfortunate. However, the State will abide by law,” LePage said.

The nurse’s lawyer, Norman Siegel, told Reuters that Hickox is very happy with the decision.

“It’s a terrific win for Kaci,” he said. “It validates what she’s been saying.”

Siegel said Hickox had readily agreed to the restrictions and would not seek to challenge them in court.

State troopers who had been stationed outside her home in the small town of Fort Kent, along the Canadian border, departed after the judge’s action.

Outside her two-storey home, numerous journalists and television news trucks remained. The local police chief had earlier entered the home but afterward declined to tell reporters what was discussed, saying that it was a “good morning conversation”. Hickox did not appear in public.

Sierra Leone, where Hickox volunteered, is one of the three impoverished West African countries at the heart of the outbreak that has killed about 5,000 people.

Medical professionals say Ebola is difficult to catch and is spread through direct contact with bodily fluids from an infected person and is not transmitted by asymptomatic people. Ebola is not airborne.

Public health experts, the United Nations, federal officials and even President Barack Obama have expressed concern that state quarantines for returning doctors and nurses could discourage potential medical volunteers from fighting the outbreak in West Africa.

Hickox had given Maine a deadline of Thursday to lift an order that she remain at home until November 10. The state did not lift the 21-day quarantine.

The nurse previously blasted New Jersey Governor Chris Christie after she was taken from Newark’s airport and put in isolation in an unheated tent before being taken to Maine to spend the rest of her 21-day quarantine at home. Twenty-one days is the maximum incubation period for Ebola.

US public concern about the virus is high even though only one person in the country is currently being treated for it, a New York doctor, Craig Spencer, who cared for patients in West Africa.

Spencer, 33, was in serious but stable condition, New York’s Bellevue Hospital said on Thursday.

In New York yesterday, US Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power defended federal guidelines for monitoring healthcare workers returning from the three Ebola-stricken countries.

Power spoke at a Reuters Newsmaker event hours after returning from a four-day trip to Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone.

She said she believed current federal guidelines for returning healthcare workers balanced “the need to respond to the fears that this has generated” in the United States with the known science on the disease.

Related Story