U.S. EBOLA FEAR - SEE WHAT LIBERIANS FACE IN THE U.S.

 When Zuru Pewu picked up her 4-year-old son, Micah, from kindergarten at a Staten Island, New York, public school recently, a woman pointed at her in front of about 30 parents and their children, and started shouting. 

"She kept screaming, 'These African bitches brought Ebola into our country and are making everybody sick!'" said Pewu, 29, who emigrated from Liberia in 2005. "Then she told her son, 'You know the country that's called Liberia that they show on the TV? That's where these bitches are from.'"

Pewu's experience points to an alarming trend. While many Americans have reached out to help, African communities in the United States are reporting an increasing number of incidents of ostracism.

Thursday's news that a physician who had treated Ebola patients in West Africa has tested positive for the disease in New York heightened anxieties even further.

Some Liberians, whose home country has been hardest hit by the worst outbreak of the virus on record, say they are being shunned by friends and co-workers and fear losing their jobs.

In California, doctors refused to examine a child believed to have been in contact with someone who traveled to West Africa but turned out to have no risk of Ebola, a nurses' association said. In Rhode Island, two women said they were disinvited to a baby shower for a co-worker.

And in South Carolina, a high school student was sent home for 14 days because the student's parent had visited Senegal, a country that has had one non-fatal case of Ebola and was declared Ebola-free last week, according to a school spokesman.

At least two speeches by Liberians have been canceled by U.S. universities, and a college in Texas refused admission to Nigerian students over worries about the virus even though that country has had few cases.

Oretha Bestman-Yates, a healthcare worker in New York, said she was barred from returning to her job after a trip to Liberia - despite 21 days of quarantine and no signs of illness.

"People are looking at Liberians as if we have Ebola in our DNA," said Ezekiel Solee, 55, a pastor in Rhode Island at a meeting in Providence on Tuesday to discuss the stigma. "Even when you hang your jacket, no one else wants to hang his jacket near you because they are afraid."