JOHANNESBURG (AP) — In the United States, some parents fearful of deadly Ebola pulled children out of a school after the principal returned from Zambia, an African nation far from the area hit by the disease. Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone — the African countries afflicted by the Ebola outbreak — have a combined population of about 22 million on a continent with more than 1 billion people. Yet the epidemic feeds into a narrative of disaster on a continent of 54 countries that has seen some progress in past years, and false perceptions of Ebola's reach are hurting African business distant from the affected areas. In the U.S.