4 UK students sick with swine flu in China

Four students visiting China from the United Kingdom have been diagnosed with swine flu, and 52 of their classmates and teachers have been quarantined, the British Embassy said Saturday.

The sick students have been hospitalized while the others were under quarantine in a hotel, the embassy said in a statement. The group was in China for language and cultural immersion courses, it said.

It did not give any other details on the cases but said it was trying to establish contact with the students' schools.One student from another group of 362 students and teachers on a similar course organized by the British Council was quarantined for two days this week, the embassy said.

Screening on arrival showed that the student had a raised temperature-a key symptom of infection by the H1N1 virus-but the student from the second group was released when no illness developed, it said.

China's Health Ministry said Friday that 1,537 cases of swine flu had been reported. None has been fatal.

Beijing has been accused in the past of not acting quickly enough to combat the spread of diseases, especially the 2003 global outbreak of SARS. Chastened by that experience and subsequent threats from bird flu, the government this time has acted quickly and decisively to block an outbreak.

But some of its measures have been criticized as excessive, including bans on imports of pork from Mexico, some U.S. states and the province of Alberta in Canada.

At one point, Beijing also canceled the only direct flights between China and Mexico, where the new strain of swine flu was first detected in late April. The tough measures have drawn complaints from Mexico that their citizens were being quarantined based merely on their nationality.

China has defended the steps as necessary to slow the spread of the disease in the world's most populous nation.