By Philip Sean Curran, Staff Writer
Princeton University students and staff should contact university medical personnel if they recently have been in parts of West Africa and developed a fever, one of the symptoms of the deadly Ebola virus, the school said this week.
In a travel advisory Tuesday, the school also said it would not provide financial aid or other support to undergraduate and graduate students traveling to three countries — Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone — to which the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said people should avoid non-essential travel.
Princeton spokesman Martin A. Mbugua said Thursday the university has a policy in that regard when it comes to countries that are on a government travel advisory or places the school feels are unsafe.
Those three countries and Nigeria are dealing with the largest Ebola outbreak in world history, according to health experts. As of Monday, 1,069 people have died, the World Health Organization said this week.
Ebola is transmitted through contact with an infected person’s blood or other bodily fluid; the disease is also spread through contact with infected animals and meat from an infected animal, the CDC said. Symptoms include fever, headache and joint and muscle pain, according to the federal government.
This week, the New Jersey Department of Health issued what it called "interim guidance" for colleges and universities that have students coming back from the impacted areas in West Africa. The state said there is no need to quarantine students who had visited those countries and show no symptoms. Officials said students should monitor themselves for 21 days from the time they were in one of those nations.
"Students may reside in normal housing without any special precautions," the state said.
Students who come down with Ebola-like symptoms should be treated in an emergency department, not a campus health center, the state said.
Mr. Mbugua said the university does not have study abroad programs in the four countries dealing with the outbreak.
"We don’t know of any students or employees who are planning travel to the three CDC level 3 countries within the next few months, and we don’t have anyone there at present," he said.
The university said that if any staff are going to Guinea, Liberia or Sierra Leone, they should notify the school’s employee health services ahead of time and do so again before they return to campus. The school also asked them to take the same steps if they are going to Nigeria.
"We have not prohibited employee travel to the three countries currently listed under a CDC level three warning," Mr. Mbugua said. "As a rule, the university does not place restrictions on employee travel for safety and security reasons."
