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Schools say they have SARS concerns


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CNN's Elizabeth Cohen has an update on the SARS virus including the temporary quarantine of an airliner at San Jose International Airport (April 1)
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HEALTH WARNING:
The World Health Organization alerts travelers to be aware if these three conditions are combined:

Fever greater than 38 C (100.4 F) with one or more respiratory symptoms including cough, shortness of breath, difficulty breathing.

Close contact with a person who has been diagnosed with SARS.

Recent travel to areas reporting cases of SARS.

GREENWICH, Connecticut (CNN) -- The headmaster at a private school in this affluent suburb said he is "probably overreacting" after forcing 40 students and staffers who recently returned from a China trip to stay home for nearly two weeks because he's concerned about Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or SARS.

"I may look a little foolish, and I think I am probably overreacting, and I've just asked parents who are upset to be forgiving," Greenwich Country Day School Headmaster Doug Lyons said Monday.

The "mystery illness" with cold-like symptoms has sickened 1,804 people in 15 nations, and is blamed for the deaths of 64, most of those in Hong Kong and mainland China, according to the World Health Organization.

Country Day School ninth-graders and their chaperones were in Beijing and Shanghai for a 10-day spring break trip last month, Lyons said. No one in the group has exhibited any SARS symptoms.

When the students return to school Monday, they will have been quarantined for 13 days, he said.

"I had one parent who said, 'Is this an April Fool's joke?'" Lyons said. "But they are pretty much good about it."

Shortened study abroad

At Syracuse University in upstate New York, school officials have shortened their Hong Kong semester study abroad program, and canceled two summer programs in mainland China amid SARS concerns.

Fifteen students were registered in the Hong Kong program, which is based at the City University of Hong Kong, where there has been one confirmed case of SARS, according to Syracuse University officials. Those students have all been advised to leave Hong Kong.

Fear of the spread of SARS caused Hong Kong officials recently to quarantine hundreds of residents in a housing complex.

On Tuesday, some of those residents were being moved out and housed in recreational camps so medical investigators could search for pockets of infection in the apartment buildings.

CNN's Kathy Novak and Shannon Troetel contributed to this report.


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