NEW YORK — A 5-year-old boy who arrived from Guinea had a low-grade fever and would be tested for Ebola in New York, while a nurse held in quarantine in New Jersey will be allowed to go home, officials said Monday.
Nurse Kaci Hickox, held at a New Jersey hospital under the state’s Ebola quarantine policy, does not have any symptoms and can complete her quarantine at home, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said on Twitter.
Hickox’s boyfriend, Ted Wilbur, on Monday had no comment on her status or plans to return to Maine.
Wilbur is in Bangor participating in clinical classes at Eastern Maine Medical Center as part of his University of Maine at Fort Kent nursing program.
On Sunday, Wilbur said Hickox had originally planned to return to their off-campus home in Fort Kent for a 21-day self-imposed quarantine.
EMMC spokesman Andrew Soucier said while the hospital is prepared to handle potential Ebola patients, it has received no official notification to expect Hickox.
“We haven’t received any word that she’s coming here,” said Soucier.
On Monday, a spokesperson for Northern Maine Medical Center in Fort Kent said the hospital had not received any word from state officials or Hickox about whether she was traveling to Fort Kent.
“We have not been contacted by [Hickox] or anyone if she is coming,” Joanne Fortin, NMMC service excellence and director of communications, said. “It does not sound like she would be a direct transfer from another hospital, so I don’t know that we would be contacted.”
On Monday morning, officials at Northern Aroostook Regional Airport said they had not received any notifications of a plane taking Hickox to the Frenchville facility.
Hickox arrived at Newark Liberty International Airport on Friday after treating Ebola patients in West Africa. She said on Sunday that she planned to challenge her quarantine in a lawsuit.
The New Jersey Department of Health said in a press release Monday that health officials in Maine were notified of Hickox’s arrangements and “will make a determination under their own laws on her treatment when she arrives.” The release did not mention Hickox by name but referred to her as “the patient being monitored in isolation at University Hospital in Newark.”
Officials with the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention issued a statement Monday detailing updated protocols for travelers from West Africa, indicating Hickox will be quarantined at home.
“This protocol for a higher-risk individual will be implemented for the first time when a [health care] worker who came into contact with Ebola-positive individuals returns soon from New Jersey,” the statement said. “Under this policy, Maine will make every possible effort to implement an agreed-upon in-home quarantine. We fully expect individuals to voluntarily comply with an in-home quarantine.”
Maine will require “active monitoring” of all travelers with a history of direct contact with Ebola patients but exhibit no symptoms of the disease, according to the protocols.
“We will work collaboratively with the affected individual to establish quarantine of the individual in his or her home for 21 days after the last possible exposure to Ebola,” the Maine CDC protocols state.
Twenty-one days is the maximum incubation period for Ebola, or the longest period it can take from the time a person is infected until developing symptoms.
“We certainly understand [health care] workers’ desire to get home after doing good work in West Africa,” Gov. Paul LePage said in a statement. “But we must be vigilant in our duty to protect the health and safety of all Mainers, as well as anyone who may come in contact with someone who has been exposed to Ebola.”
The state will work with health care workers to ensure no direct contact with others during in-home quarantine and “help make sure the [health care] worker has everything to make this time as comfortable as possible,” LePage said.
Maine CDC will coordinate food and medicine if needed, according to its statement.
The Maine CDC statement said Maine “will take further measures, out of an abundance of caution, to ensure public safety,” but it did not stipulate what those measures are.
If any traveler develops symptoms, “protocols will be initiated to transport the individual to the proper health facility for immediate treatment.”
Maine’s protocols apply to those whose travel originated in Liberia, Sierra Leone or Guinea — the countries hardest hit by Ebola — in accordance with federal CDC guidelines.
Maine health officials also are monitoring another traveler to the state who did not come into contact with Ebola patients, according to the statement. Under the updated protocols, that individual must contact Maine CDC daily to report his or her temperature and must notify health officials immediately of any symptoms of Ebola, including headache, joint and muscle aches, weakness, diarrhea, vomiting, stomach pain, lack of appetite or abnormal bleeding. The individual also must report any additional travel plans.
Maine CDC has released no other details about that traveler, including where the individual is being monitored.
The University of Maine System plans to release a statement later on Monday after consulting with representatives of the Maine CDC and other health personnel, according to system spokesman Dan Demeritt.
On Monday, Demeritt would not speculate on the status of Wilbur’s attending classes at UMFK if Hickox does return to live in their Fort Kent home.
Calls to UMFK were referred to Demeritt.
“We are taking our lead from the public health officials with the expertise in this,” Demeritt said. “We want to be ready and the community to know we are prepared.”
In New York, a 5-year-old boy who visited West Africa and has a low-grade fever would be tested for Ebola, City Health Commissioner Dr. Mary Travis said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program.
The boy’s exposure history to the virus was unclear, she said.
“He has … traveled to one of the three affected countries and has a fever, and that’s what triggers an assessment,” she said.
He would be tested for the virus, with results available later on Monday, she said. His fever was low-grade, she said.
Local media said the child lived in New York City’s Bronx borough.
Four people have been diagnosed with Ebola in the United States. The handling of the first case, a Liberian visitor to Texas in September who died, was riddled with missteps. Two nurses who treated the man contracted the disease but have recovered.
The only patient being treated for Ebola in the United States is a New York doctor, Craig Spencer, who was diagnosed on Thursday. He had worked in Guinea treating Ebola patients with the humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders.
The mandatory quarantine policies put in place on Friday by the governors of New York and New Jersey have come under criticism that they may discourage health care workers from traveling to West Africa to help in the fight against Ebola.
The virus has killed nearly 5,000 people in West Africa.
Medical professionals say Ebola is extremely difficult to catch and is spread through direct contact with bodily fluids from an infected person and not transmitted by asymptomatic people.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo struck a conciliatory tone on Sunday about the new quarantine policy after the White House said that mandatory isolation could impede the Ebola fight.
Cuomo said New York wanted to encourage personnel to go to West Africa, lauding their “valor” and “compassion” while protecting public safety at home.
Health care workers and travelers exposed to people with Ebola and who live in New York may stay in their homes for the 21-day quarantine and be checked upon twice daily by health care professionals, Cuomo said, adding the state would provide financial assistance if needed.
Hickox, the first health worker isolated under the rules, was placed in 21-day quarantine in a New Jersey hospital after returning from treating Ebola patients in Sierra Leone. She will fight her quarantine in court, her attorney said Sunday, arguing the order violates her constitutional rights.
Christie said on Sunday that under New Jersey quarantine policy, a New Jersey resident who had contact with someone with Ebola would be quarantined at home. Nonresidents would be taken home if feasible or quarantined in New Jersey.
Hickox went public over the weekend to speak out about hours of questioning she underwent at Newark Liberty International Airport and her transfer to a hospital isolation tent.
She remains asymptomatic and has not tested positive for Ebola, prominent civil liberties lawyer Norman Siegel said.
BDN writers Jackie Farwell and Julia Bayly contributed to this report.