China quarantines school groups
Some of the British teenagers holed up in a hotel room in Beijing
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More than 100 schoolchildren and their teachers from the UK and US have been quarantined in Beijing after eight children were found to have swine flu.
The four UK and four US children are being treated in a Beijing hospital and are said to be in a stable condition.
China has this year quarantined hundreds of foreign visitors who have shown symptoms of the H1N1 virus.
The four Britons taken ill are from London schools. A further 52 UK pupils and teachers are under quarantine.
The hospitalised pupils are year nine students, aged 13 to 14; three from the Central Foundation Boys School, Clerkenwell, and one from Parliament Hill School, Camden.
High temperatures
Meanwhile, four of the British pupils under quarantine have told the news from their hotel room they are being well looked after.
The four, who attend Clevedon School in north Somerset, are all in their late teens and are part of a group of 12 from that school, plus two teachers.
“We are quarantined in the hotel and are all currently well as we have daily temperature checks which are all good,” they said in an e-mail sent from their hotel room.
“The hotel is really nice and we have proper toilets. We hope we experience more of China as we should be out within four days.”
One of the boys, Christopher Hicks, said that they had been visiting the Great Wall of China when they were called back, because they had previously shared a bus with a pupil from another school who had tested positive for the virus.
Another pupil, Joe Robinson, said: “We’re being treated very, very well. The food’s great. We’ve got our own individual tellies.”
They also had individual rooms, he said, although they had to wear protective face masks and were not allowed outside of the quarantined zone.
More than 600 Britons are on the trip, organised by the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust (SSAT), the Department for Children, Schools and Families, the British Council and Chinese organisation Hanban.
Speaking about the four UK pupils who have swine flu, the SSAT’s Katharine Carruthers said: “They are being extremely well looked after and cared for, to the extent where they’re getting pizza delivered to where they are. They are all happy and getting better.
“There are a number of children in quarantine in very comfortable conditions in a four-star hotel in Beijing, who have been in close contact with the swine flu cases.
“Everyone is in good spirits, getting involved in activities and carrying on their Chinese learning.”
The vast majority of the students are continuing their trip as normal, she said.
The BBC’s Quentin Sommerville, in Beijing, said three of the four UK children were found to have high temperatures when they arrived in Beijing earlier in the week.
They were taken straight from the airport to a hospital where it was confirmed they had the virus. A fourth classmate fell ill later.
Chinese health officials monitor passengers arriving in the country
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The American children had been in contact with the UK group and four of them were also diagnosed as having the virus.
Amii van Amerongen, from London, told the news that her 15-year-old sister was one of the children under quarantine.
“She called me this morning telling me that she is confined in a hotel and she is being very brave about the whole thing. She said it was quite intimidating – they have these ‘guns’ that they point at your head which measure your temperature,” she said.
Chinese officials told the news that the children were being well looked after and they had regular contact with their families.
Simon Calder, travel editor for the UK’s Independent newspaper, told the news that many countries were using “thermal imaging” at airports to test travellers, and the UK was viewed as a high-risk area.
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