Officials say danger of Ebola spreading is low at Richmond

While 60 percent of Americans are at least somewhat concerned about a domestic outbreak of Ebola according to ABC News polls, school health officials said University of Richmond had been closely monitoring the global Ebola situation and had a response plan if necessary.

University officials have been hard at work preparing for how to deal with a case of Ebola, as well as monitoring epidemiological updates from the Centers for Disease Control, according to the Student Health Center website. Four cases of Ebola have been confirmed so far in the United States, and five others infected with the disease have been brought to the country for treatment, according to NBC News. All but one have recovered, while one more is currently receiving treatment.

Nearly 5,000 deaths have been reported since the first cases began appearing in Guinea in December, though the only cases among Americans have been doctors and media members working in Africa, as well as two nurses who contracted the disease while treating the infected patients. 

The disease is difficult to spread, and the chances of being infected are slim. You are nearly 1,500 times more likely to die in a car accident this year than to contract Ebola this year, according to NPR. Still, it is always important to be prepared to deal with any emergencies, school officials said.

“As with any international safety concern, we stay current with the CDC and State Department warnings involving travel to the affected area,” said Brittany Schaal, director of emergency management on campus. She said procedures had been laid out in the school’s Infectious Disease Annex, which was added to its Emergency Operations Plan after the campus’ mumps outbreak in early 2013. “As part of that event, an after-action report was completed … [to provide] structure for the coordination of support to impacted groups and affected individuals,” Schaal said.

While most parts of the school’s Emergency Operations Plan are available on its website, the Infectious Disease Annex is still considered to be in draft form, and it awaits signature from President Ayers, Schaal said. Accordingly, the annex has yet to be released, and Schaal did not provide a time frame.

Contrary to the scene that sensationalistic media paints, Ebola is controllable and survivable. The health center’s website notes: “Ebola poses no substantial risk to the U.S. general population.” It stresses that planning for an outbreak is a necessary part of preparation, but controlling risk factors has much more to do with simply being aware and cautious.

Much of the public has been focusing on the wrong aspects of the Ebola cases, said Jory Brinkerhoff, a biology professor at Richmond.

Brinkerhoff, who specializes in epidemiology and disease ecology, said allowing Ebola patients into the U.S. in the first place is “not a risk if we know they are infected because we know what protocols should be used for personal protection and isolation.” The danger, he said, is in admitting people “we do not know are infected,” or “who do not themselves know they are infected.” He listed some of the factors that school medical officials are likely looking at while continuing to monitor this Ebola crisis, which the CDC has officially acknowledged as the deadliest global Ebola outbreak in history.

He said he would be prudent about monitoring the histories of “anyone coming to campus who had been in a high-risk environment, such as Sierra Leone,” and to identify anyone who might have contracted the disease if a case were to turn up. He said he would also make sure campus health care personnel was up to speed, as well as kept in touch with local and regional hospitals to ascertain where a suspected case should be transferred to. And while Ebola patients do have a fair chance of recovery – Brinkerhoff assessed the mortality rate of sufferers at 70 percent – once someone has become infected, sometimes a quarantine of the sick person is all that can be done.

A key part in controlling an infectious disease such as Ebola, especially in regions where vaccines and treatments are unavailable, is to reduce or eliminate transmission of the disease, Brinkerhoff said. "The best way to eliminate transmission is to isolate infected individuals."

However, Brinkerhoff wanted students’ takeaways to be that while Ebola is a scary subject that should be taken seriously, senseless paranoia on the issue would only make matters worse. “My feeling is that we are at essentially zero risk of Ebola showing up at UR and Ebola should really be among the least of our concerns,” he said.

Contact reporter Jacob Steinfield at jacob.steinfield@richmond.edu