65 Ore. students caught in China swine flu scare

BEIJING - Sixty-five Oregon students were in quarantine in Beijing, China, after one of them tested positive for swine flu, a NBC News producer in Beijing said on Sunday.
Separately, Britain's Foreign Office said that China placed 52 visiting British students in quarantine after four of the group were hospitalized with suspected swine flu, according to the BBC.
The British and American students had been in contact, the BBC reported.
Medford school trip
School officials from Medford, Oregon, said a student traveling in China had tested positive for the disease and been confined in a hospital despite showing no symptoms, The Associated Press reported earlier.
St. Mary's school principal Frank Phillips told the AP that the positive test also triggered the quarantine of the entire school group of 65 students and seven chaperones, the AP said. The group was traveling in China on a three-week language and culture camp sponsored by the Chinese government.
Phillips said the groups was quarantined at a hospital and has missed several planned tours, but he says that if no signs of fevers were found by Chinese health officials, the group would be able to continue its planned program in China.
NBC's producer in Beijing reported that the Oregan students would be held for four days and should be released on July 22. One of those being held was Nicholas Phillips, son of the school's principal, he said.
Travel warning
A spokeswoman from the U.S. Embassy in Beijing told msnbc.com she could not confirm whether the Oregon students were indeed being held in the city.
The U.S. State Department has issued travel advisories warning of China's swine flu policy but does not release information on specific cases or numbers because of privacy concerns, Susan Stevenson, a press attache at the embassy, told msnbc.com.
About 1,800 American citizens have been held in quarantine since China's new procedures were put in place in May, and there had been around 200 cases of the virus, she said.