Exchange students have swine flu

Eight students from a private school in Kent have been confined to hospital in northeast Romania with swine flu.

The group from Sevenoaks School arrived in Romania on 25 June as part of an annual exchange programme to work with disabled children in the city of Iasi.

The teenagers, aged between 16 and 18, were in a group of 19 students and three teachers from the school.

They were being kept in isolation at Iasi's Hospital for Infectious Diseases on Friday.

British diplomats were liaising with the school and Romanian public health authorities to decide whether to fly the students home or keep them in hospital.

The total number of swine flu cases in Kent since the outbreak began had risen to 105 by Friday.

A Ramsgate school which closed on 26 June after a teacher tested positive for swine flu reopened on Monday.

Principal of Marlowe Academy, Ian Johnson, said it was thought likely the teacher caught the disease after a group of students from Kent University visited the school.