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 units to 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.