Ebola Outbreak Spreads, Ghana Term Cancelled
Concerns about the recent Ebola virus outbreak in Africa have caused PEA to cancel its fall study abroad program in Ghana.
Four seniors: Jordan Cynewski, Casey Osborne, Nicholas Baughan and Cat O'Donnell, and their adviser, Kwasi Boadi, would have spent the fall term at the Ghanaian IB Boarding School in Tema but will now be back in Exeter.
The decision to cancel the Ghana fall term abroad program was made by the Off-Campus Programs committee, which includes the dean of students, the CFO, the dean of residential life, the director of global initiatives and Boadi.
Eimer Page, the director of global initiatives, said her office kept up with the latest information coming out of the Center for Disease Control, the World Health Organization and other agencies to help in the decision making process. “My office monitors the daily information and online webinars coming from those sources and a group including the dean of students and dean of residential life meets to talk over the situation and weigh up the risks,” she said.
In one last meeting of the Off-Campus Programs committee, the group came to a unanimous decision. Page explained that the decision was finalized after conversations with PEA’s travel health advisers and international agencies.
Due to the cancellation, Exeter had to quickly put together accomodations for the students on campus in the fall. The students needed class schedules and dorm rooms on short notice. Osborne said she appreciated the transparent way that Exeter handled the situation.
“The Academy been completely open throughout the process, updating us when developments arose, and incredibly helpful in out transition back to fall term at Exeter once we found out the trip would be cancelled,” she said.
The Academy was able to help the Ghana trip students by arranging rooms for them in their dormitories and aiding the course selection process. Osborne was initially worried about her limited fall term course and living arrangement possibilities, but her concerns were quickly dissolved. “I had to find fall term classes, and reschedule my courses for the entire year based off of what I've decided to take now. I also had to make sure that Hoyt had a room that I could live in, since I'm a proctor and I really wanted to be in the dorm. Both concerns were taken care of quickly.”
The recent Ebola virus outbreak in Africa is the worst case recorded in history. More than 1,500 are dead out of the 3,000 infected, and the World Health Organization warns that the number of cases could rise up to 20,000, spreading from remote areas into teeming cities. Ebola is spread by close contact with bodily fluids such as blood, saliva and sweat—even something as innocent as a tainted tear. While there is a 50 percent chance of survival, there is no cure yet. Detection of Ebola has been difficult because early symptoms resemble those of malaria or typhoid.
With these circumstances in mind, the main concern for the Academy was student safety, Boadi said.
"The uncertainty about the situation on the ground in Ghana was a major factor in the decision. Even though there were no confirmed cases of the disease in Ghana as of Monday, August 11, when the decision was made, a number of suspected Ebola patients had been isolated in the country awaiting test results and, as a result, the Ghanaian Ministry of Health had issued a red alert that day urging good hygiene practices,” he said. Many other college programs, such as NYU’s all semester program in Accra, only about fifteen miles from Tema, were also cancelled.
While this is not the first time Phillips Exeter Academy has changed or canceled a trip, PEA has never experienced a case in which a disease has cancelled a term abroad. Page noted the previous instances. “All trip destinations are monitored before and during the program. Term programs have responded to safety risks,” she explained. “The China program, for example, moved from Beijing to Taipei for winter because of pollution and health fears. The Spanish term in Mexico moved to mainland Spain and then Ecuador because of gang violence, but the threat of a dangerous infectious disease relatively close to a destination is not something I have encountered before.”
Another issue that could have occurred on the trip was the risk of other diseases with so much attention on Ebola. Baughan believed that his chances of catching Ebola would have been very slim. However, with so much focus on Ebola, other diseases may have been overlooked. “While I think that the chance I would have contracted Ebola had I gone is very slim, if cases of Ebola started to pop up in Ghana all the health resources would be used to stop the Ebola and then a case of Malaria—or another disease completely unrelated to Ebola—would become much more serious without those resources,” he said.
Even though this year’s Ghana trip was prevented by the Ebola virus, the Academy hopes that next year will be a different story. With the help of the health organizations, the Ebola virus will be contained and eliminated, allowing students to again be able to participate in the opportunity.
“I wish to reassure prospective applicants for the 2015 fall term in Ghana that the program is still active,” Boadi said. “We should all hope and pray that the international medical and health community will be able to get a handle on the situation, cure all affected patients and contain the spread.”