MSU officials canceled one study abroad program and diverted another to Europe on Friday in response to a deadly global virus centered in Asia.
The business studies program in China was postponed for a year and another business program in Thailand and Singapore was transferred to Scandinavia, said Kathleen Fairfax, director of the Office of Study Abroad.
Both original study sites are designated as highly affected by Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or SARS.
SARS is an emerging infectious disease that is likely caused by a new coronavirus, a group of germs known to cause respiratory illnesses such as the common cold.
"We want to make sure that whatever we decide, we make the safety of students our No. 1 priority," Fairfax said. "But we also don't want to deny the students of an opportunity."
Two summer programs in the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources and James Madison College also are under high scrutiny and could be rerouted or canceled. Fairfax said the fate of the programs will be decided early this week.
The World Health Organization last week began recommending that people traveling to the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and Guangdong Province, China, postpone unnecessary travel.
More than 2,300 people have been infected with the virus and at least 115 of those cases were reported within the United States. Out of those infected, there have been about 90 deaths internationally. Two patients in Michigan are being treated for SARS.
"The hard part about this is that the information is changing twice a day," university physician Dr. Beth Alexander said. "The whole world should be concerned about it but not panicked. When you put it in perspective, flu kills thousands of people each year, but we don't get panicked about that."
Symptoms of SARS include a fever higher than 100.5 degrees, respiratory difficulty and coughing. People who have recently traveled to Asia or were exposed to someone who has just come from the continent are at a higher risk.
Fairfax said MSU has two students in Asia, but there are no plans to bring them back early.
The Thailand and Singapore program was able to change areas because it took place in Scandinavia last year, Fairfax said, but the China program won't be able to do the same.
"I'm disappointed, but it was the right choice," said management Professor Mike Moch, faculty leader of the 25 students who planned to go to China in the summer. "We don't want to put our students at risk."
Finance and supply chain management graduate student Chris Benham, who was planning to go to China this summer, said he assumed since other schools had canceled similar programs, MSU would follow suit.
On Sunday night he had not heard officially whether his program would be affected.
"This SARS outbreak is scary and unpredictable, and they still don't know enough about it," he said. "I'm 99.9 percent sure Michigan State will cancel because it's too much of a liability for them to send us over."
But Benham said he would feel safer in Michigan, although there are known cases in the United States.
"If it does happen, where would you rather be, in your home country or quarantined overseas?" he said.
Robert Duncan, dean of the Eli Broad College of Business, said the decision to reroute the Thailand and Singapore program was an easy one.
"These global experiences are really important to our curriculum," he said. "On the other hand, we have to be responsible to the risks associated with that."
