A group of 52 British students and their teachers have been quarantined by Chinese authorities after four students tested positive for swine flu, the British Council said yesterday.
The four students who tested positive for the A(H1N1) virus have been hospitalized while the group they were on a course with have been quarantined in a hotel in Beijing, the British Council said in a statement.
The students were not part of a British Council trip, but the organization had been made “aware” of the quarantine.
No other details were provided by the authorities.
The British embassy said its officials were trying to make contact with the organizers of the trip.
OTHER GROUP
In a separate incident, a British student from another group was quarantined along with a teacher for two days after she showed a heightened temperature when she arrived in Beijing this week, the British Council said.
The student showed no flu symptoms and was later allowed to rejoin the group, the statement said.
She was part of a group of 362 students and teachers from 41 schools on a British Council-organized language course.
The British Council is a publicly-funded organization that promotes cultural and educational exchanges around the world.
China has launched aggressive measures to try and detect swine flu, including temperature checks on foreign flights coming into the country.
There have been about 1,500 positive cases in China since the beginning of May, the health ministry said on its website, but no deaths.
In the last table released by the WHO on July 6, the health agency had recorded 94,512 laboratory-confirmed cases in 136 countries and territories since April.
To date, 429 people have died from the virus.
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