Countrymouse
Country exile in the city
First schools in Dekalb County (N of Atlanta):
http://patch.com/georgia/dunwoody/d...dents-west-africa-citing-ebola-0#.VEK6PMmwTZh
Dunwoody Schools Turn Away Students from West Africa Citing Ebola
A family newly arrived in Dunwoody from the Ebola hot zone of West Africa cannot enroll its children in local schools until the Centers for Disease Control or another medical authority says it is safe to do so.
DeKalb County school officials told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution the father worked in the Liberia/Sierra Leona office of CARE, a humanitarian organization. The family returned to the United States Sept. 14 and tried to enroll the children Wednesday at Dunwoody Elementary and Dunwoody High School.
According to school officials, the family had a letter from CARE saying more than 21 days had passed since their return from the United States, which is beyond the quarantine period for Ebola. But the district requires confirmation from the CDC or local health department, the newspaper reports.
The school district also says new students from Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea and other affected areas in Africa won’t be allowed in school until they have medical approval.
While Ebola is a hot topic nationwide, it is especially scrutinized in the Atlanta area, with Emory University Hospital home to one of the country’s four special isolation unitsto treat infectious diseases.
A nurse who contracted Ebola at a Texas hospital while treating a man who eventually died from the disease will be treated at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, CDC director Tom Frieden said this week.
Emory Hospital has a successful track record of treating patients infected with the deadly virus; American aid workers Nancy Writebol and Dr. Kent Brantly were returned to the United States in early August via Dobbins Air Reserve Base in Cobb County after contracting the disease in West Africa and were released from the hospital after successful treatment in late August.
The pair were treated in a state of the art isolation ward that is physically separated from other parts of the hospital. Only a handful of medical personnel ever interacted with Brantly or Writebol during their recovery. It stands to reason that the same procedures will be enacted for the Texas nurse.
The nurse who is coming to Emory for treatment and a second nurse, Nina Pham who is headed to Maryland, are believed to have contracted Ebola while treating Thomas Eric Duncan, who contracted the virus in Liberia and died last week.
Many OTHER school systems around Atlanta are taking SIMILAR measure:
Ebola: Schools announce plans, consulate warns against stigma
Local schools are taking measures to aid in the fight against Ebola.
Blayne Alexander, WXIA 8 p.m. EDT October 17, 2014
http://www.11alive.com/story/news/e...rian-consulate-warns-against-stigma/17461033/
ATLANTA -- As the Ebola crisis continues to unfold, more communities are taking precautions, including some metro Atlanta school districts. At least six districts are revising or reviewing their enrollment policies, placing increased caution on students who have recently traveled to the West African region.
Thursday, DeKalb County school officials were the first to announce that students who have traveled to Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea or other affected areas in the United States within the past 21 days cannot register or attend classes without proper medical documentation and approval from the superintendent.
Friday, Cobb County Schools announced a similar policy, sending a letter to parents to outline the changes.
A spokesperson for Douglas County Schools said newly-enrolling students will be asked if they've recently traveled to an Ebola-stricken region. If the answer is yes, that student will "go to an unoccupied room in the registration building immediately," where the superintendent will be notified to take further action.
"Some might suggest stigmatizing a group of individuals because of where they have been born, but that's really not what we're doing," said DeKalb County superintendent Michael Thurmond.
"What we're really doing is saying, look, here's a protocol that can help limit the risk of the spread of the disease in the DeKalb County School System."
Gwinnett County Schools will keep their existing international student enrollment process, but schools have been directed to call parents if a student displays a fever in the classroom, and to ask about travel. A spokesperson told 11Alive, the district nurse will also work with the county health department to ensure all protocols are followed.
Clayton County Schools also have an existing international student enrollment process, and are reviewing those procedures to see if anything should be changed.
Atlanta Public Schools will now include questions about recent travel when enrolling new students.
Fulton County Schools will also adjust protocol for new and current students or staff who have recently traveled to affected regions.
Additionally, the Georgia Health Department sent guidelines to all Georgia school districts, colleges and universities.
But Cynthia Blandford, the Georgia-based Consulate General for Liberia, warned against taking caution too far.
"It's very important that young people, young children as they're coming into the school system, as they transfer into schools, that they're not stigmatized as they walk into the front door," she told 11Alive's Blayne Alexander.
Blandford said there is a balance between due-diligence and stigmatizing.
"For example, many calls have come in about Liberians not being able to eat in certain restaurants because of the fear of Ebola," she said. "I want us to be certainly cautious about the Ebola crisis, but I want us to not get caught up in an frenzy, in a scare that would really help to alienate people."
The Consulate office has held meetings and education sessions since the beginning of the Ebola outbreak. To learn more, visit the website.
Then MERCER UNIVERSITY in MACON (central Georgia) has a near-miss:
http://www.macon.com/2014/10/10/3355814_liberian-ebola-crisis-hits-home.html?rh=1
Liberian Ebola crisis hits home for Mercer University students, graduates
By LAURA CORLEY
lcorley@macon.comOctober 10, 2014
See also https://www.facebook.com/MercerASA
Massa Mamey talks Monday about her brother, Lasana Mamey Sr., who died Sept. 21 of Ebola while participating in the Doctors Without Borders program.
JASON VORHEES — jvorhees@macon.com Buy Photo
The last time Massa Mamey spoke with her sick brother, Lasana, he told her he would be OK.
“I was like, ‘I heard you were sick.’ And he was like, ‘Oh, I’m fine. I’m going to be fine.’ ’’ Mamey said. “And that was the last time I talked to him.”
Her brother died from Ebola on Sept. 21, four days after their last conversation.
Mamey, 26, is one of a half-dozen recent Mercer University graduates in Macon who are unable to return home to Liberia. Eight more Liberian students are now enrolled, including her younger brother, Fabunde.
For them, the Ebola outbreak ravaging west Africa is more than a headline or a story on the evening news. The devastating epidemic back home tugs at them daily, and they are fearful, conflicted and powerless to help.
Lasana Mamey Sr., 39, died doing the same work he did during Liberia’s 14-year-long civil war. He was a nurse’s aide for Doctors without Borders at a hospital in Monrovia, Liberia, where he died as a patient. He thought he had malaria and had been taking antimalarials to treat it.
“He really didn’t think that it was Ebola,” Mamey said. “My (other) brother had to pressure him to go and get tested. In fact, (Lasana) said he wasn’t even going to get tested because he didn’t have Ebola. ... I think he was in denial.”
His mother and father are now caring for his seven children.
To prevent further outbreak, Ebola victims are being cremated instead of buried, a practice that clashes with the country’s ceremonious and intimate cultural norms.
“They just cremate all the bodies together so nobody knows who John, Paul or Peter is. All of them, just together,” Mamey said. “That’s the most painful part because ... You’re actually burning bodies.
“I will never see him again. There’s no grave I can go back (to) and say, ‘This is where my brother is.’ ”
The last time Mamey saw her brother was in 2010, before she left Liberia to study global health and sociology at Mercer. She hasn’t been back home since, but she got to see her parents in May when they came to watch her and her brother, Boakai, graduate.
Mamey, Boakai and her younger brother, Fabunde, went to high school at Ricks Institute in Paynesville, a suburb east of Monrovia. They were named Sam Oni Scholars in honor of the Nigerian who was the first black student admitted to Mercer in 1963.
As a part of their scholarship, they agreed to return to Ricks Institute after graduation to teach and give back for at least two years.
Mamey sent most of her belongings home with her parents, who flew back to Liberia in early July. She bought her own ticket to fly home on Aug. 24, and looked forward to hugging her family, hanging out with her friends and eating Liberian food.
“I was really excited. I was ready to go back home,” Mamey said. “I’ve enjoyed living in the states. There are a lot of opportunities here as compared to Liberia. The facilities (are) great, 24-hour electricity. We don’t get that in Liberia. We don’t get 24-hour running water, we don’t get 24-hour Wi-Fi. It’s really different and life here is decent, but as much as it’s been nice, there is no place like home.
“I really miss home. I wanted to go back. I was ready to go back.”
‘IN LIMBO’
But Mamey’s flight was canceled.
“All of a sudden I was just in this weird place where I don’t know what’s going on,” she said. “I didn’t have a plan. I was like, ‘What am I going to do now? I don’t have a job. I don’t have a house.’ So, I was just kind of in limbo.”
She knew about the Ebola outbreak, but she said she never thought it would keep her from going home. Schools closed and people quarantined themselves during what has become a state of emergency.
As the death toll in Liberia continued to climb, Mamey and her brothers realized the severity of the epidemic and knew they wouldn’t be going home any time soon. Each of them stays in close contact with their family.
“I try to talk to them every day,” Mamey said. “Sometimes, even if I don’t have anything to say, I just want to talk to them because it’s hard. It’s hard being far away from home and then this big disease going on. You’re just so afraid because you never know when you’re going to talk to them the next day.”
Mamey’s mother was also a nurse’s aide, but after her son died, she stopped working for fear she would get infected. Because of untreated glaucoma, Mamey’s father is blind and unable to work. They have their own children to care for as well as Lasana’s.
Mamey said her family is doing what it can to stay healthy, including staying off the streets and avoiding places with lots of people. Refrigerators are an uncommon luxury in Liberia, so food perishes quickly. Her mom and oldest brother, Sarnoe Mamey Jr., take extra precautions when they leave home for food.
“My dad said that when my mom goes to the market, she comes back (and) she immediately washes her hands with bleach-chlorine water,” Mamey said. “Then, the clothes that she was wearing, she goes to the bathroom (and) takes them off (and) washes them with chlorine water and makes sure she sprays chlorine water everywhere just to be safe.”
So far, the death toll in Liberia alone has passed 2,200, the most of any other country with an Ebola outbreak, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Mamey reads the news daily, hoping for positive reports, but there’s been little. With help from a friend from First Baptist Church of Macon, she was recently hired to teach at a children’s center. When she’s not working, she tries to distract herself with yoga, cooking or hanging out with friends, but she said feelings of relief are fleeting, quickly replaced with grief and fear.
“I’m really, really scared,” she said. “It’s going to take a while. Liberia, we’ve been through a lot. (We) are just coming out of 14 years of civil war, still trying to rebuild the country.”
Though Ebola is just a word in the news to many Americans or something happening mostly on other continents, Mamey hopes people will pay attention.
“I just think that people should know Ebola is real and people in Liberia are real people dying,” she said. “They’re actual people who are dying every single day, and it’s really sad that we don’t have a way (to contain the virus).
“I want them to understand what people in Liberia are going through. They just read it on the news, but they don’t really live it. ... They need to understand what it is, how they can help and think about how it’s going to affect them in the long run.”
To contact writer Laura Corley, call 744-4382.
Read more here: http://www.macon.com/2014/10/10/3355814_liberian-ebola-crisis-hits-home.html?rh=1#storylink=cpy
And in Clarkston, home of Georgia Perimeter College (NE of Atlanta) and CENTER OF one of the largest concentrations of immigrants from West Africa:
DeKalb County holds forum about Ebola virus
Updated: 11:17 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 14, 2014 | Posted: 11:05 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 14, 2014
http://www.wsbtv.com/news/news/local/dekalb-county-holds-forum-about-ebola-virus/nhjXM/
VIDEO AT LINK
By Rachel Stockman
DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. —
DeKalb County officials say there is growing fear about the Ebola virus, especially in communities with large populations of refugees from West Africa.
On Tuesday, the DeKalb County Board of Health held a community forum to address concerns and fears.
“We’ve heard mumbling of people being afraid. I know in our own health department, there is this fear, ‘Oh they are from Africa, do something with them,’” said Dr. Sandra Elizabeth Ford, the district health director for DeKalb County.
“There are a lot more infections here in DeKalb that people really need to be worried about that are much more easily contracted then Ebola,” Ford said.
Ford said for example, that tuberculosis and the flu are much more contagious and prevalent in DeKalb County.
DeKalb County is home to one of the largest refugee populations in the Southeast and many are from West Africa.
Ford said the mayor of Clarkston, which has a large refugee population, called her concerned about fear in his community.
She said that is part of the reason they held the panel.
Much of the information about the presentation can be found here. (a link to the CDC kool-aid sites: http://www.dekalbhealth.net/2014/10/what-do-you-need-to-know-about-ebola/
http://patch.com/georgia/dunwoody/d...dents-west-africa-citing-ebola-0#.VEK6PMmwTZh
Dunwoody Schools Turn Away Students from West Africa Citing Ebola
A family newly arrived in Dunwoody from the Ebola hot zone of West Africa cannot enroll its children in local schools until the Centers for Disease Control or another medical authority says it is safe to do so.
DeKalb County school officials told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution the father worked in the Liberia/Sierra Leona office of CARE, a humanitarian organization. The family returned to the United States Sept. 14 and tried to enroll the children Wednesday at Dunwoody Elementary and Dunwoody High School.
According to school officials, the family had a letter from CARE saying more than 21 days had passed since their return from the United States, which is beyond the quarantine period for Ebola. But the district requires confirmation from the CDC or local health department, the newspaper reports.
The school district also says new students from Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea and other affected areas in Africa won’t be allowed in school until they have medical approval.
While Ebola is a hot topic nationwide, it is especially scrutinized in the Atlanta area, with Emory University Hospital home to one of the country’s four special isolation unitsto treat infectious diseases.
A nurse who contracted Ebola at a Texas hospital while treating a man who eventually died from the disease will be treated at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, CDC director Tom Frieden said this week.
Emory Hospital has a successful track record of treating patients infected with the deadly virus; American aid workers Nancy Writebol and Dr. Kent Brantly were returned to the United States in early August via Dobbins Air Reserve Base in Cobb County after contracting the disease in West Africa and were released from the hospital after successful treatment in late August.
The pair were treated in a state of the art isolation ward that is physically separated from other parts of the hospital. Only a handful of medical personnel ever interacted with Brantly or Writebol during their recovery. It stands to reason that the same procedures will be enacted for the Texas nurse.
The nurse who is coming to Emory for treatment and a second nurse, Nina Pham who is headed to Maryland, are believed to have contracted Ebola while treating Thomas Eric Duncan, who contracted the virus in Liberia and died last week.
Many OTHER school systems around Atlanta are taking SIMILAR measure:
Ebola: Schools announce plans, consulate warns against stigma
Local schools are taking measures to aid in the fight against Ebola.
Blayne Alexander, WXIA 8 p.m. EDT October 17, 2014
http://www.11alive.com/story/news/e...rian-consulate-warns-against-stigma/17461033/
ATLANTA -- As the Ebola crisis continues to unfold, more communities are taking precautions, including some metro Atlanta school districts. At least six districts are revising or reviewing their enrollment policies, placing increased caution on students who have recently traveled to the West African region.
Thursday, DeKalb County school officials were the first to announce that students who have traveled to Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea or other affected areas in the United States within the past 21 days cannot register or attend classes without proper medical documentation and approval from the superintendent.
Friday, Cobb County Schools announced a similar policy, sending a letter to parents to outline the changes.
A spokesperson for Douglas County Schools said newly-enrolling students will be asked if they've recently traveled to an Ebola-stricken region. If the answer is yes, that student will "go to an unoccupied room in the registration building immediately," where the superintendent will be notified to take further action.
"Some might suggest stigmatizing a group of individuals because of where they have been born, but that's really not what we're doing," said DeKalb County superintendent Michael Thurmond.
"What we're really doing is saying, look, here's a protocol that can help limit the risk of the spread of the disease in the DeKalb County School System."
Gwinnett County Schools will keep their existing international student enrollment process, but schools have been directed to call parents if a student displays a fever in the classroom, and to ask about travel. A spokesperson told 11Alive, the district nurse will also work with the county health department to ensure all protocols are followed.
Clayton County Schools also have an existing international student enrollment process, and are reviewing those procedures to see if anything should be changed.
Atlanta Public Schools will now include questions about recent travel when enrolling new students.
Fulton County Schools will also adjust protocol for new and current students or staff who have recently traveled to affected regions.
Additionally, the Georgia Health Department sent guidelines to all Georgia school districts, colleges and universities.
But Cynthia Blandford, the Georgia-based Consulate General for Liberia, warned against taking caution too far.
"It's very important that young people, young children as they're coming into the school system, as they transfer into schools, that they're not stigmatized as they walk into the front door," she told 11Alive's Blayne Alexander.
Blandford said there is a balance between due-diligence and stigmatizing.
"For example, many calls have come in about Liberians not being able to eat in certain restaurants because of the fear of Ebola," she said. "I want us to be certainly cautious about the Ebola crisis, but I want us to not get caught up in an frenzy, in a scare that would really help to alienate people."
The Consulate office has held meetings and education sessions since the beginning of the Ebola outbreak. To learn more, visit the website.
Then MERCER UNIVERSITY in MACON (central Georgia) has a near-miss:
http://www.macon.com/2014/10/10/3355814_liberian-ebola-crisis-hits-home.html?rh=1
Liberian Ebola crisis hits home for Mercer University students, graduates
By LAURA CORLEY
lcorley@macon.comOctober 10, 2014
See also https://www.facebook.com/MercerASA
Massa Mamey talks Monday about her brother, Lasana Mamey Sr., who died Sept. 21 of Ebola while participating in the Doctors Without Borders program.
JASON VORHEES — jvorhees@macon.com Buy Photo
The last time Massa Mamey spoke with her sick brother, Lasana, he told her he would be OK.
“I was like, ‘I heard you were sick.’ And he was like, ‘Oh, I’m fine. I’m going to be fine.’ ’’ Mamey said. “And that was the last time I talked to him.”
Her brother died from Ebola on Sept. 21, four days after their last conversation.
Mamey, 26, is one of a half-dozen recent Mercer University graduates in Macon who are unable to return home to Liberia. Eight more Liberian students are now enrolled, including her younger brother, Fabunde.
For them, the Ebola outbreak ravaging west Africa is more than a headline or a story on the evening news. The devastating epidemic back home tugs at them daily, and they are fearful, conflicted and powerless to help.
Lasana Mamey Sr., 39, died doing the same work he did during Liberia’s 14-year-long civil war. He was a nurse’s aide for Doctors without Borders at a hospital in Monrovia, Liberia, where he died as a patient. He thought he had malaria and had been taking antimalarials to treat it.
“He really didn’t think that it was Ebola,” Mamey said. “My (other) brother had to pressure him to go and get tested. In fact, (Lasana) said he wasn’t even going to get tested because he didn’t have Ebola. ... I think he was in denial.”
His mother and father are now caring for his seven children.
To prevent further outbreak, Ebola victims are being cremated instead of buried, a practice that clashes with the country’s ceremonious and intimate cultural norms.
“They just cremate all the bodies together so nobody knows who John, Paul or Peter is. All of them, just together,” Mamey said. “That’s the most painful part because ... You’re actually burning bodies.
“I will never see him again. There’s no grave I can go back (to) and say, ‘This is where my brother is.’ ”
The last time Mamey saw her brother was in 2010, before she left Liberia to study global health and sociology at Mercer. She hasn’t been back home since, but she got to see her parents in May when they came to watch her and her brother, Boakai, graduate.
Mamey, Boakai and her younger brother, Fabunde, went to high school at Ricks Institute in Paynesville, a suburb east of Monrovia. They were named Sam Oni Scholars in honor of the Nigerian who was the first black student admitted to Mercer in 1963.
As a part of their scholarship, they agreed to return to Ricks Institute after graduation to teach and give back for at least two years.
Mamey sent most of her belongings home with her parents, who flew back to Liberia in early July. She bought her own ticket to fly home on Aug. 24, and looked forward to hugging her family, hanging out with her friends and eating Liberian food.
“I was really excited. I was ready to go back home,” Mamey said. “I’ve enjoyed living in the states. There are a lot of opportunities here as compared to Liberia. The facilities (are) great, 24-hour electricity. We don’t get that in Liberia. We don’t get 24-hour running water, we don’t get 24-hour Wi-Fi. It’s really different and life here is decent, but as much as it’s been nice, there is no place like home.
“I really miss home. I wanted to go back. I was ready to go back.”
‘IN LIMBO’
But Mamey’s flight was canceled.
“All of a sudden I was just in this weird place where I don’t know what’s going on,” she said. “I didn’t have a plan. I was like, ‘What am I going to do now? I don’t have a job. I don’t have a house.’ So, I was just kind of in limbo.”
She knew about the Ebola outbreak, but she said she never thought it would keep her from going home. Schools closed and people quarantined themselves during what has become a state of emergency.
As the death toll in Liberia continued to climb, Mamey and her brothers realized the severity of the epidemic and knew they wouldn’t be going home any time soon. Each of them stays in close contact with their family.
“I try to talk to them every day,” Mamey said. “Sometimes, even if I don’t have anything to say, I just want to talk to them because it’s hard. It’s hard being far away from home and then this big disease going on. You’re just so afraid because you never know when you’re going to talk to them the next day.”
Mamey’s mother was also a nurse’s aide, but after her son died, she stopped working for fear she would get infected. Because of untreated glaucoma, Mamey’s father is blind and unable to work. They have their own children to care for as well as Lasana’s.
Mamey said her family is doing what it can to stay healthy, including staying off the streets and avoiding places with lots of people. Refrigerators are an uncommon luxury in Liberia, so food perishes quickly. Her mom and oldest brother, Sarnoe Mamey Jr., take extra precautions when they leave home for food.
“My dad said that when my mom goes to the market, she comes back (and) she immediately washes her hands with bleach-chlorine water,” Mamey said. “Then, the clothes that she was wearing, she goes to the bathroom (and) takes them off (and) washes them with chlorine water and makes sure she sprays chlorine water everywhere just to be safe.”
So far, the death toll in Liberia alone has passed 2,200, the most of any other country with an Ebola outbreak, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Mamey reads the news daily, hoping for positive reports, but there’s been little. With help from a friend from First Baptist Church of Macon, she was recently hired to teach at a children’s center. When she’s not working, she tries to distract herself with yoga, cooking or hanging out with friends, but she said feelings of relief are fleeting, quickly replaced with grief and fear.
“I’m really, really scared,” she said. “It’s going to take a while. Liberia, we’ve been through a lot. (We) are just coming out of 14 years of civil war, still trying to rebuild the country.”
Though Ebola is just a word in the news to many Americans or something happening mostly on other continents, Mamey hopes people will pay attention.
“I just think that people should know Ebola is real and people in Liberia are real people dying,” she said. “They’re actual people who are dying every single day, and it’s really sad that we don’t have a way (to contain the virus).
“I want them to understand what people in Liberia are going through. They just read it on the news, but they don’t really live it. ... They need to understand what it is, how they can help and think about how it’s going to affect them in the long run.”
To contact writer Laura Corley, call 744-4382.
Read more here: http://www.macon.com/2014/10/10/3355814_liberian-ebola-crisis-hits-home.html?rh=1#storylink=cpy
And in Clarkston, home of Georgia Perimeter College (NE of Atlanta) and CENTER OF one of the largest concentrations of immigrants from West Africa:
DeKalb County holds forum about Ebola virus
Updated: 11:17 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 14, 2014 | Posted: 11:05 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 14, 2014
http://www.wsbtv.com/news/news/local/dekalb-county-holds-forum-about-ebola-virus/nhjXM/
VIDEO AT LINK
By Rachel Stockman
DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. —
DeKalb County officials say there is growing fear about the Ebola virus, especially in communities with large populations of refugees from West Africa.
On Tuesday, the DeKalb County Board of Health held a community forum to address concerns and fears.
“We’ve heard mumbling of people being afraid. I know in our own health department, there is this fear, ‘Oh they are from Africa, do something with them,’” said Dr. Sandra Elizabeth Ford, the district health director for DeKalb County.
“There are a lot more infections here in DeKalb that people really need to be worried about that are much more easily contracted then Ebola,” Ford said.
Ford said for example, that tuberculosis and the flu are much more contagious and prevalent in DeKalb County.
DeKalb County is home to one of the largest refugee populations in the Southeast and many are from West Africa.
Ford said the mayor of Clarkston, which has a large refugee population, called her concerned about fear in his community.
She said that is part of the reason they held the panel.
Much of the information about the presentation can be found here. (a link to the CDC kool-aid sites: http://www.dekalbhealth.net/2014/10/what-do-you-need-to-know-about-ebola/
