Universities adjust plans in face of Ebola crisis

American universities are suspending programmes in West Africa in the light of the Ebola outbreak, and taking measures to ensure that no one comes back to campus with the disease, writes Karen Weintraub for USA Today.

On 31 July, the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention warned Americans against non-essential travel to Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone because of Ebola. The disease has sickened more than 1,700 in those countries and claimed more than 960 lives.

Since then, several universities have announced that they would not send their students to the region. New York University issued a statement saying that it would not send students to its programme in Ghana for the autumn. Ghana has not had any cases of Ebola, but it sits between the West African nations at the centre of the outbreak – Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia – and Nigeria, which has seen at least 10 cases since a sick American travelled there and died late last month.
Full report on the USA Today site