Future of China Program Uncertain
By Cameron Byerley
Staff Writer

In response to the threat of SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome), Pomona is intensively monitoring its study abroad program in Beijing, China. Beijing has reported 1,114 cases with 56 dead according to the Ministry of Health. Although 1,114 is a small number compared to the population of Beijing, it is nearly one fifth of the cases reported world-wide.

SARS is a pneumonia like disease that began in China and has been spreading around the world for about six months. Doctors are unsure exactly how it spreads, though they know that most of those infected have been family members or health care workers exposed to a SARS patient. There is a possibility that it is an air-born virus, but it is thought to spread mainly by droplets from the respiratory systems. Five to ten percent of those infected, mostly the elderly, die of the disease and it presently has no cure.

Because it has no cure, governments around the world have focused on prevention by the use of strict quarantines for anyone with SARS symptoms or suspected contact with those infected. The State Department is asking people traveling to SARS-infected areas to monitor their temperatures after returning home, and airports have enacted screening measures.

Currently the State Department has issued a warning advising that all non-essential travel to China be cancelled. Pomona usually follows the State Department guidelines when deciding whether to cancel a program. The China program has not been cancelled, however, because there is no way of knowing if a traveler to China will be at risk of SARS in five months.

The university in Beijing that Pomona students study at is currently closed because it is very close to a hospital with a large number of SARS patients. If it is still closed or deemed dangerous next year, students could be relocated to a different area in China.

If the China program still seems too risky in the fall, the study abroad office will work with the students as quickly as possible to find another program of their choice. "It's really hard to make projections. [The students] still want to go, but we're not going to put them in a situation that's risky," said Assistant Director of Study Abroad Susan Popko.

Popko said that nationally most study abroad offices are thinking about the summer programs right now and will focus on the fall when the time comes. Pomona has no summer study abroad programs, but it is observing those around the nation to see how they handle the disease. CMC has cancelled their fall program, while Pitzer has not made a decision yet.

There has been success in containing the virus in Canada and Vietnam but health authorities are not making projections about its containment in China. The travel advisory to Vietnam has been lifted because of their successful efforts to prevent the spread of new infections. The disease has a cycle of about ten days, and the World Health Organization waits for two cycles to pass with no new infections to declare that the outbreak has ended.

Even if SARS remains in China at current levels, the actual risks of traveling are not that great. For every Chinese person who has died of SARS, 10 million have not. Peter Marsh, a researcher at Oxford, points out that in the time 300 people died from SARS tens of thousands died from the flu and pneumonia and that a child dies every thirty seconds from malaria. In fact, about five times as many people die in China every year from falling down the stairs, as from SARS.

While the risk of SARS may be numerically small, governments are reacting strongly to prevent a large scale outbreak that could cause many unnecessary deaths.