Effects of Ebola virus scar on international students mobility. (1)
Students cordoned off on the campus of Southwestern College during a mid-October Ebola scare (Reuters/Mike Blake)
An abundance of caution
Many institutions are now considering what measures they will take in
response to Ebola. Some are encouraging students or staff who have
travelled from West Africa to monitor their health closely. Others are
introducing travel bans for faculty and staff to prevent travel to
affected countries.
Spurred by three confirmed Ebola cases in the Dallas area, and, on 24
October, another confirmed case in New York City, some US institutions
have been quick to act in response to even the possibility of contact
with the disease.
- In mid-October, a public health doctoral student at Yale University,
recently returned from Liberia, was isolated in hospital with fever
symptoms. The student later tested negative for the disease.
- Kent State University asked three staff members who had possibly
been exposed to stay off campus and monitor their health for 21 days,
widely considered to be the maximum incubation period for the virus.
- Students at California’s Southwestern College were evacuated and
quarantined for several hours after rumours spread that a student had
been in contact with someone with Ebola-like symptoms. (The claim was
soon disproved and the quarantine lifted.)
- Syracuse University and the University of Georgia have both recently
cancelled speaking appearances by journalists who had returned from
Liberia.
- Oregon’s Jesuit High School cancelled a school visit by a group of African student leaders.
- Dallas-area Navarro College rejected applications from Nigerian students,
saying that the community college was “not accepting international
students from countries with confirmed Ebola cases,” though they have
since cited other reasons for the rejection. Source: ICEF Monitor