Quinnipiac University Assistant Professor Nears End of Ebola Monitoring Period

A Quinnipiac University assistant professor is in the last week of a government-ordered 21-day monitoring period imposed on anyone returning from Ebola-infected West African countries.

“I take my temperature twice a day and report to two health officials from the Quinnipiac Valley Health Authority over the phone,” Hamden resident Fodei Batty, assistant professor of political science at Quinnipiac, wrote in an op-ed published in the Hartford Courant called “Ebola Epidemic's Legacy Of Fear And Corruption.” “I keep wondering, however, if these precautionary measures really would be necessary if the American people had an accurate picture of how the epidemic unfolded since last year.”

Batty showed no Ebola symptoms, but still had to undergo the mandatory 21-day period to monitor his health. As of Wednesday, he was on day 16 after returning from Sierra Leone and has a week to go, he wrote in his op-ed in the Courant.

From 2007 to 2009, he served as policy analyst in the Sierra Leone's president's office.

"Innocent lives were needlessly lost, especially in Sierra Leone, because corrupt officials and others manufactured schemes to pocket Ebola funds at the same time as they misled the outside world about the disease," Batty wrote in his op-ed in the Courant. "Today, one year after the peak of the epidemic, it is very difficult to determine where the scams around Ebola stop
and where the disease and suffering of victims begin. This, unfortunately, is the real tragedy of the Ebola epidemic in Sierra Leone, a once beautiful country and popular tourist destination that is now largely plundered."

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