Back from Africa, UN Ambassador Samantha Power says she's self-monitoring for Ebola

WASHINGTON – Fresh from her trip to some of the hardest-hit Ebola countries in Africa, U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Power said Friday she was self-monitoring for the virus and following federal guidelines.

Those directives are significantly more lax than those American military members dispatched to the region will be required to complete upon returning to the States.

Power, who arrived Thursday night in New York City, has been critical of quarantine restrictions that some states like New Jersey want to implement.

Power praised the U.S. response to the outbreaks in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia and Tweeted a picture of airport officials taking her temperature.

Speaking at a Reuters Newsmaker event in New York, Power said current federal regulations created a balance of “the need to respond to the fears that this has generated with the known science on the disease.”

Power said she was considered at low risk for contracting the virus because she did not come in direct contact with Ebola patients. She also said her temperature had been taken three times before boarding a plane and was checked once more when she arrived in New York.

According to guidelines from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, symptoms of Ebola include a temperature of 100.4 degrees or higher, severe headaches, muscle pain, diarrhea, vomiting, stomach pain and unexplained bleeding or bruising.

On Wednesday, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel approved a recommendation from the Joint Chiefs of Staff that mandates a 21-day isolation period for all military personnel returning from the region. Hagel directed the chiefs to review the regimen after 45 days.

Ebola is transmitted through bodily fluids of an infected person. It is not airborne.