US Isolates Soldiers After Ebola Response Mission in West Africa

The U.S. Army has started isolating soldiers returning from an Ebola response mission in West Africa, even though they showed no symptoms of infection and there was no incident signaling potential exposure, the Pentagon said on Monday.

The decision goes well beyond previously established military protocols and came just as the White House pushed to roll back steps by U.S. states to quarantine healthcare workers returning from countries battling Ebola epidemics, even if they showed no symptoms of infection.

The Army has already isolated about a dozen soldiers at part of a U.S. military base in Vicenza, Italy. This includes Major General Darryl Williams, who oversaw the military's initial response to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.

Williams is the head of the U.S. Army Africa, which is based at Vicenza, and the senior Army officer at the base.

"They're not allowed to leave," said Colonel Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman, describing the precautions as "enhanced monitoring." Warren said it would be incorrect to describe their conditions as a quarantine.

Dozens more troops would be isolated in the coming days as they rotate out of West Africa, where the U.S. military has been building Ebola treatment facilities to help health authorities treat Ebola victims, the Pentagon said.

"There was no single triggering event. This is really a decision that's made out of an abundance of caution," Warren said.

The Army is the only service to implement such a move. The only personnel who have rotated out of the operation so far have been from the Army, Warren said.

But a U.S. military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters that discussions were under way about taking similar action across the U.S. armed forces.