Ailing US students leave Ghana early

Ghanaian doctors wrongly diagnosed students
A five-week summer study program promised University of Washington students a "hands-on exposure" to the West African nation of Ghana.

But some of the students got an exposure of an unexpected kind when eight of the 17 fell ill with malaria-like symptoms during an August trip. The outbreak prompted the UW to cut the trip short by a week and charter a plane to ferry the stricken students out of Ghana's rural upper west region.

Their abrupt return apparently is the first time the UW prematurely shut down a study-abroad trip. Future visits to Ghana are on hold for now ? for unrelated reasons, UW says.

The eight ill students flew to Accra, the capital, on a chartered flight paid by the UW's travel insurance, said Anand Yang, director of the UW's Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies. They then caught commercial flights to Seattle. The remaining nine students opted to finish their stay in Ghana, learning about the country's cultural, health and economic-development programs.

Ghana is a high-risk area for malaria, a mosquito-borne disease. Ghanaian doctors diagnosed the students with malaria, but subsequent tests at UW showed that was not the cause of their illness. The UW did not release the students' names. They all have recovered but are still being tested to determine the cause of their illness, Yang says.

False-positive tests for malaria are not uncommon in less-developed nations. Many other conditions can produce malarialike symptoms, such as fever, chills, vomiting. Gastroenteritis, which is caused by contaminated water or food, is one example.

The incident may push the UW to consider more carefully just how far to let students venture to remote parts of developing countries, Yang said.

Clean water, familiar foods and other comforts can grow scarcer the farther travelers venture from urban areas, Yang said.

"These are very difficult conditions for middle-class Americans to get into," Yang said.