Health Care Worker Tests Negative For Ebola In NJ, Stays In Quarantine

A nurse has been quarantined at University Hospital in Newark for the possibility of Ebola has tested negative in a preliminary test, authorities said early this morning. Patti Sapone/NJ Advance Media /Landov hide caption

A nurse has been quarantined at University Hospital in Newark for the possibility of Ebola has tested negative in a preliminary test, authorities said early this morning.

A woman who was put in isolation at Newark Liberty International Airport remains under quarantine, despite a preliminary test that found she did not have the deadly Ebola virus.

The health care worker was isolated Friday as she returned from treating Ebola patients in West Africa. She had no symptoms of the disease, but after she developed a fever, she was taken to a nearby hospital.

"The patient continues to be quarantined and remains in isolation and under observation at University Hospital in Newark," New Jersey's health department said early Saturday, in a statement announcing preliminary test results.

The health care worker returned to the U.S. on the same day that guidelines for handling possible exposure to Ebola were being tightened. Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York and Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey said that their states will institute a mandatory 21-day quarantine for anyone traveling from West African nations who has also had contact with an Ebola patient. (Update at 4 p.m. ET: Illinois is installing the same quarantine policy; Chicago's O'Hare airport is one of five that have been screening passengers from West Africa.)

"It's too serious a situation to leave it to the honor system of compliance," Cuomo said of the new requirement.

The shift seems to have caught the health care worker by surprise. In a series of tweets Friday afternoon, Dr. Seema Yasmin of the Dallas Morning News said the woman is Kaci Hickox, a nurse who was "being held against her will" at the airport where she had been returning from a month treating patients in West Africa.

Yasmin said Hickox is a friend who works with Doctors Without Borders. Relaying information from her, Yasmin said she was "distraught" and wasn't being given information about why she was not allowed to leave.

Update at 3:50 p.m. ET: Quarantined Nurse Writes About Her Experience

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Health Care Worker Tests Negative For Ebola In NJ, Stays In Quarantine

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