Healthy boy barred from UK school amid Ebola 'hysteria'

© Cavendish

Kofi Mason-Sesay with mother Miriam.

A school in Stockport has cancelled the visit of a charity worker and her son after "ignorant" parents feared their children would be infected with Ebola.

Head teacher Elizabeth Inman wrote to parents on Tuesday to say that "with a very heavy heart" the school had taken "the pragmatic decision" to stop the visit, despite both mother and son having been screened and granted unrestricted movement in the UK.

Miriam Mason-Sesay, who is British but has lived in Sierra Leone since 2000, said her son has been treated like a "leper", adding that the school's decision was down to "ignorant" parents.

"Unfortunately, there was so much pressure from an ignorant parent body that the school had to act," she said.

"We've been met with leper-type attitudes from wealthy people overreacting and trying to protect themselves from a threat which isn't there."

Nine-year-old Kofi Mason-Sesay from Sierra Leone was due to study at St Simon's Catholic Primary School in Hazel Grove, Stockport, this month while his mother was on fundraising duties for the charity EducAid which runs a network of free schools for vulnerable youngsters in the West African country.

Last month the school had tried to reassure parents that the forthcoming visit posed no risk to the pupils of contracting the disease.

The school took advice from health chiefs in the borough and passed on Public Health England's guidance that anyone travelling from affected countries who were free of symptoms was not infectious.

Ms Inman said: "I understand that there is a lot of misinformation about how Ebola is spread. A significant number of parents have been in touch with me to express their fears.

"As you know, I always listen to parents. Ebola cannot be spread as some parents have suggested.

"Of course I would never endanger any child or colleague and I have to put my trust in the professionals.

"It is with great sadness that we decided to cancel the visit. The misguided hysteria emerging is extremely disappointing, distracting us from our core purpose of educating your children and is not an environment that I would wish a visitor to experience."

The head suggested to parents that a sizeable donation should be made instead to EducAid to recognise its work in a country "which has received more than its share of setbacks".

Experts have said the chances of it spreading in the UK are 'very low' - and there has been just one imported case from a medic who was treating patients in Sierra Leone.

A nurse in Madrid is the first person to have contracted the virus outside of West Africa after treating two missionaries who returned home to Spain from the region.

Advice has been issued to the Border Force to identify possible cases of the virus.