Quarantined for Ebola, US Nurse Says 'Made to Feel Like a Criminal'

New York: An American nurse published a scathing account on Saturday of her treatment after being put in isolation in the United States following a stint caring for Ebola patients in West Africa, saying she was made to feel like "a criminal."

Kaci Hickox was the first person to enter a mandatory 21-day quarantine for medical staff returning to parts of the United States who may have had contact with Ebola patients in West Africa, the epicenter of the outbreak that has killed nearly 5,000 people.

The new rules took effect in New York and New Jersey on Friday, the same day Ms Hickox returned.

"This is not a situation I would wish on anyone, and I am scared for those who will follow me," Ms Hickox wrote in The Dallas Morning News, saying she was showing no symptoms when she arrived back in the United States.

Ms Hickox, who landed at New Jersey's Newark Liberty International Airport after working with Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in Sierra Leone, will be monitored at a hospital for 21 days, the known incubation period of Ebola.

Her account recalled the ordeal that began with her "grueling" two-day journey from Sierra Leone back to the United States.

Then, at the airport's quarantine office in immigration, "one man who must have been an immigration officer because he was wearing a weapon belt that I could see protruding from his white coveralls barked questions at me as if I was a criminal," Ms Hickox said. 'No one in charge'

Despite feeling "tired, hungry and confused," Ms Hickox said she tried to remain calm during the three hours that passed in the office.

"No one seemed to be in charge. No one would tell me what was going on or what would happen to me," she said. "I wondered what I had done wrong."

Ms Hickox's temperature was initially a normal 98 degrees Fahrenheit (37 Celsius). But four hours after she landed, a forehead scanner found it to be 101 degrees, suggesting fever.

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Quarantined for Ebola, US Nurse Says 'Made to Feel Like a Criminal'