An Ebola scare at Southwestern College last week prompted college officials to close down the 400 building with police tape and campus police officers blocking people from entering and exiting possible infected areas.
The scare happened when a student — whose identity is being withheld by the college — informed her psychology teacher on Oct. 16 that she was feeling ill and feared that she may have been exposed to Ebola because her sister was hospitalized after she shared the same flight with a Dallas nurse who was diagnosed with the virus, said Lillian Leopold, a spokeswoman for the college.
When the instructor heard the student’s story, the teacher immediately notified a campus administrator and requested that the student be taken to the nurse’s office, Leopold said.
Leopold said the administrator then informed campus police of the situation who arrived on the scene to shut down the 400 building and administer aid.
SWC police officers enclosed about 50 students in a classroom for quarantine for about four hours.
“For us to err on the side of safety, we quarantined and shut down that area where our students were impacted,” SWC
Police Chief Michael Cash said during a press conference last week.
Meanwhile, campus officials contacted the San Diego County Health Department to inform them of the situation.
The precautionary measures for Ebola were something that the college had not prepared for, Cash said.
“Bottom line, everyone has this scare,” he said. “ We did not think it would be coming to San Diego, let alone us being the first one,” he said.
Leopold said the school followed its emergency preparedness plan.
But the plan only addresses earthquakes, fire and evacuations. Preparing for outbreak of infectious diseases is not in the plan.
Leopold said the county’s department of health has a protocol for handling infectious diseases; specifically Ebola, and the college followed the health department’s plan with some implementation of its emergency preparedness plan.
“We were able to contact county officials around 10:50 a.m. and walk through the entire (process),” she said.
Leopold said the school followed protocol correctly by sending student to the nurse’s office.
“The first line of defense and the first line of diagnosis is with local health officials, which in this case was the campus nurse,” she said.
Leopold said whether or not a student exhibits any signs of an infectious disease, the college maintains communication with the county health department.
Because the nurse determined the student was not sick, public health officials felt they did not need to visit the scene, said Craig Sturak, a spokesman for the county’s health department.
Leopold said in the near future college officials would work closely with the county to modify the college’s emergency preparedness plan in dealing with Ebola.
“There are parts of our emergency plan that we’re going to tweak to make them better,” she said.
