Universities act against feared Ebola cases

College campuses nationwide took precautionary measures amid Ebola fears during the past week, but administrators have assured faculty, students and their families that the steps are an “abundance of caution.”

Two people have contracted the virus on U.S. soil — both were Texas healthcare workers who had treated Thomas Eric Duncan, the first case of Ebola to reach the United States.

Duncan succumbed to Ebola on Oct. 8. A memorial service was held Saturday in Salisbury, N.C., where his mother and other members of his family live, according to the Associated Press.

Students and faculty at the University of Texas at Austin received an email from President Bill Powers on Saturday explaining that a university student had flown on the same Oct. 13 flight as one of the healthcare workers who tested positive for Ebola.

Powers said the student was staying away from campus activities.

“Health officials do not believe there is any health risk to campus at this time,” he said.

At Yale University, a doctoral student who had recently returned from Liberia was hospitalized on Oct. 15 with a low-grade fever, prompting university President Peter Salovey to issue a campus-wide statement.

He emphasized that the student had not come into contact with Ebola patients or caregivers during the trip. The student later tested negative for the disease.

A Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist also found himself at the center of an Ebola controversy after his invitation to participate in a fall workshop at Syracuse University’s journalism school was revoked on Thursday. Michel duCille had been covering the Ebola outbreak in West Africa for the Washington Post.

Lorraine Branham, dean of Syracuse’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, said in a statement that duCille had been self-monitoring with no sign of symptoms, but allowing him to come to campus posed too great of a risk.

“If it were just about me, that would have been good enough,” she said. “However, I knew that might not be good enough for many others in our community.”

Should a patient infected with Ebola come to UNC Hospitals, the system has a protocol in place for dealing with the infected person.

On Friday, President Barack Obama appointed an official “Ebola czar” to oversee the U.S. response to any cases of the disease in the country.

state@dailytarheel.com