PHILLIPS, Maine — A teacher at Strong Elementary School has been required to take a 21-day leave of absence because parents were concerned the teacher could have been exposed to the Ebola virus during a recent trip to Dallas, according to a report in the Sun Journal.
A notice on the school’s website states that administrators placed the teacher on paid leave of absence out of an abundance of caution.
“We have no information to suggest that this staff member has been in contact with anyone who has been exposed to Ebola,” the notice states.
If that’s the case, placing the teacher on leave amounts to a “tremendous overreaction,” said Dr. Robert Pinsky, hospital epidemiologist at Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor.
The only individuals at risk of contracting Ebola are those directly exposed to someone infected with the virus who shows symptoms of illness, he said. In the U.S., that represents a small number of people, Pinsky said, such as the health care workers who cared for the Ebola patient in Dallas, a Liberian national who died from the virus.
“There’s just no basis at all to put someone on leave of absence just because they’ve been to Dallas,” he said. “The only people at risk are the health care workers who took care of the patient there and the family of the original patient who died.”
Even passengers aboard a commercial flight with one of the Texas nurses infected with Ebola face minimal risk because the nurse wasn’t showing symptoms, Pinsky said. Contracting Ebola requires contact with the bodily fluids of an infected individual, such as blood, vomit or feces.
At an SAD 58 Board of Directors meeting Thursday night, parents asked why the board hadn’t notified them earlier that the teacher had recently attended a conference in Dallas, the newspaper reported.
The board requested the teacher not be named publicly.
Superintendent Erica Brouillet told parents the trip had been planned long before three Ebola cases there made Dallas a center of attention.
