US imposes quarantine on soldiers returning from West Africa

The U.S. military has started isolating soldiers returning from an Ebola response mission in West Africa and Australia became the first rich nation to impose a visa ban on the affected countries amid global anxiety about the spread of the virus.

The latest measures have been condemned by health authorities and the United Nations as extreme, along with decisions by some U.S. states to impose mandatory quarantines on health workers returning home from treating Ebola victims in West Africa, .

The United Nations on Monday sharply criticized the new restrictions imposed by some U.S. states on health workers returning home from the affected West African states of Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone.

"Returning health workers are exceptional people who are giving of themselves for humanity," Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, said. "They should not be subjected to restrictions that are not based on science. Those who develop infections should be supported, not stigmatized."

American soldiers returning from West Africa are also being isolated, even though they showed no symptoms of infection and were not believed to have been exposed to the deadly virus, officials said on Monday.

The Ebola outbreak has killed nearly 5,000 people since March, the vast majority in West Africa, but nine Ebola cases in the United States have caused alarm, and states such as New York and New Jersey have ignored federal advice by introducing their own strict controls.

Australia came under fire from health experts and rights advocates after it issued a blanket ban on visas from West African nations affected by the Ebola outbreak, making it the first rich nation to shut its doors to the region.

Australia has not recorded a case of Ebola despite a number of scares, and conservative Prime Minister Tony Abbott has so far resisted repeated requests to send medical personnel to help battle the outbreak on the ground.

The decision to refuse entry for anyone from Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia, while touted by the government as a necessary safety precaution, was criticised by experts and advocates as politically motivated and shortsighted.