Though swine flu has caused a worldwide scare this year, it has minimally affected students who are enrolled in study abroad programs, even in higher risk areas such as Mexico and Asia.
Currently, 40 UCLA students are enrolled in two summer study programs in Mexico, 189 people are enrolled to go abroad to Asia, and 37 to Latin America, said Noah Duman, a counselor at the UCLA international education office.
“No students have specified (swine flu) as a reason for dropping out of a program,” Duman said.
Janet Page, a second-year student who is currently studying abroad in Mexico, wrote in an e-mail that she is not worried about contracting the disease.
“I might have been worried if I was staying for a prolonged period of time in an affected area of Mexico. Fortunately, I’m studying in Merida, Yucatan, far from any swine flu cases with less incidents than Southern California,” she wrote.
Since the outbreak of swine flu, no education abroad programs have been suspended.
But students studying in Mexico during the spring came home a week early because of a University of California system-wide policy, which states that a program must be suspended if there is a U.S. Department of State travel warning or health advisory, said Zachary Frieders, assistant director at the Education Abroad Center in UC Davis.
Two UCLA students who had been studying in Mexico City also came home early because of the travel warning and finished their work for their program in the United States, Duman said.
“The concern for swine flu came in late spring, when most study abroad programs had finished or were very close to being finished. We, then, had time to make the necessary provisions for summer programs,” Frieders said.
But some unexpected events have occurred due to the disease. Last week, during a UC Davis program in Kyoto, Japan, students were quarantined for one week because their Japanese tutors had contracted the virus, Frieders said.
The instructor, a UC Davis professor, continued to lecture the students, but the required reading and travel was condensed for the remainder of the four-week program. Some students said that if the quarantine lasted longer than a week, they would have wanted to come home early. But since the quarantine did not extend beyond a week, all students are continuing with the program, Frieders said.
Jillian Corey, a third-year global studies student, who will be studying in China for the entire 2009-2010 school year, said that she is not worried about being affected by the flu.
“Flu outbreaks affect the very old and very young. I’m not in that age range so I’m not worried,” Corey said.
However, other minor changes in programs have occurred. For example, the location of classrooms for a program in Argentina had to be changed because the original facility was closed due to swine flu. But Frieders said that an alternate location was found four blocks away.
The Education Abroad Program works closely with embassies and state departments to protect the safety of students and keep students informed, Frieders said.
“At the EAP headquarters, a person assesses health and safety in all their programs in various countries,” Duman said. “There are study centers in most of the program locations for student support, and there are also phone trees to get and send information.”