The University lifted its ban on travel to mainland China last week, ending the last of its restrictions on travel to SARS-infected countries.

The lift on the moratorium was announced in a June 24 letter to the Harvard community by Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences William C. Kirby, though some students affected by the travel ban said they had not received a copy of Kirby’s letter from any Harvard department.

The decision followed the World Health Organization’s removal of its last remaining SARS-related travel advisory, on China.

Harvard officials had originally expected the ban to last much longer.

“Most experts felt the epidemic wouldn’t be over by now,” said Provost Steven E. Hyman. “We are surprised and pleased that China, after a late start, would be able to contain this epidemic.”

Hyman said that like other Ivy League institutions and universities across the nation, Harvard pegged its travel policy to the recommendations of the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control.

Although the policy change now allows students to travel to mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Vietnam and Toronto, some who intended to pursue grant research in China have nonetheless had to change their summer plans because of the early deadlines on grant applications.

Julie E. Hackenbracht ’04, an East Asian Languages and Civilizations (EALC) concentrator, had planned to spend her summer interning for the State Department in Beijing and conducting field research for her thesis.

But after winning her grant from the Weissman Foundation, Hackenbracht was told she could only use it for an internship in a region not affected by SARS.

“Since my goals were to learn about U.S. and China relations, that made it difficult,” she said.

Hackenbracht opted to leave the Beijing internship, which she was slated to begin in early June, rather than pursue the position in Mongolia that the Department of State in Washington had offered her. Instead, she is staying in Cambridge, researching her thesis and volunteering with Evening With Champions.

“It is just frustrating that Harvard forced me to cancel my summer plans in April (through the loss of funding and the moratorium) because of a health concern that was nearly over before I was supposed to even start my internship,” she wrote in an e-mail. “In addition, the Weissman did not offer me the option of receiving the grant money if the SARS ban was lifted, so I don’t even have the option of beginning my internship a couple of weeks late—even though I still technically could meet the grant’s requirements.”

Some students said they will rework their summer plans in light of the lift on the ban.

Another EALC concentrator, William J. Adams ’04, was allowed to keep his grant money from the Harvard Asia Center, which had been intended to fund travel to China, and find new uses for it.

“To work around the travel ban...I created a new proposal where I would do my research project in Harvard libraries,” he said. “Now that the travel ban is lifted, I’m going to Beijing to continue my original project.”