British students and their teachers

BEIJING (AFP) – 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 on Saturday.

The four students who tested positive for the A(H1N1) virus have been hospitalised 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 organisation had been made "aware" of the quarantine. No other details were given.

The British Embassy said they were trying to make contact with the organisers of the trip.

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 added.

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-organised language course.

The British Council is a publicly-funded organisation 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 around 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 World Health Organization on July 6, the health agency had recorded 94,512 laboratory-confirmed cases in 136 countries and territories since April, including 429 deaths.