Talk of swine flu parties has emerged on Internet forums. The idea is that exposing a child to the H1N1 virus while it remains relatively mild will give the child immunity if the virus returns in a more virulent form later on.

The idea is an extension of chicken pox and measles parties that were once a popular way of exposing children to those diseases so that they might acquire resistance to subsequent infections.

But health officials have been quick to condemn the idea. Speaking at a conference, Dr Richard Jarvis, chairman of the British Medical Association’s public health committee, said “I have heard of reports of people throwing swine flu parties. I don’t think it is a good idea.

“I would not want it myself. It is quite a mild virus, but people still get ill and there is a risk of mortality.”

Last month, Richard Besser, the acting head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, also warned against deliberately exposing people to the virus.

While it’s not clear if any swine flu parties have been held, Justine Roberts, the founder of Web site mumsnet, today told BBC Radio 4 that some people have been discussing the idea.

“We have heard of people saying ‘can we come round to your house when you get it?” she said.

“There’s definitely a prevailing view that it might be better to get it now and some people are not despairing if there is a case in their school.”

Flu epidemics often come in waves and there are fears that a more virulent form of H1N1 may strike in the fall. That happened with the Spanish flu pandemic in 1918.

Researchers at George Washington University in Washington DC have studied the 1918 pandemic and have found that in areas where there were more cases during the first wave of Spanish flu, there were fewer deaths during its second wave, in the fall of that year.

The suggestion is that exposure to the first wave of the flu conferred immunity to its second wave.

But H1N1 is still very much an unknown quantity. Experts warn that little is known about the virus and that actively encouraging its spread could risk the health of those who are most vulnerable.

While the symptoms associated with swine flu are not usually life threatening among people in good health, it can be deadly for elderly people or those with other medical conditions.

The latest figures from the World Health Organization show there have now been 311 confirmed deaths around the world from the H1N1 virus first identified in Mexico this spring, and just over 70,000 infections in 113 countries.

Are people seriously that dumb?

The boy was admitted to a private hospital on Monday morning and discharged after treatment, said health ministry spokesman Fidel Hadebe.

Laboratory tests came back positive on Thursday for the H1N1 virus.

While there have been nearly 30 cases of swine flu in Egypt and several in Morocco, this is the first known case of the virus in sub-Saharan Africa.

Last week, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak a pandemic.

“The patient was kept in isolation and discharged after a few days in hospital. He is well and recovering in isolation at home,” said Mr Hadebe in a statement.

Health officials have warned that countries in the southern hemisphere – which includes the bulk of sub-Saharan Africa – could see a leap in cases of H1N1 because they are currently heading into winter and the height of flu season.

Northern hemisphere countries are bracing for a surge in swine flu when their winter begins later this year.

Correspondents say South Africa has good medical facilities well-equipped to deal with any swine flu epidemic.

Swine flu has infected some 40,000 people in more than 70 countries and killed 167 since detected in Mexico in April, says the WHO.

A group of ninth graders and teachers from a California private school has been quarantined in China after seven of them tested positive for swine flu on a school trip.

Caroline Callaway, a spokeswoman for Pacific Ridge School in Carlsbad, said six students and one teacher have been diagnosed with the virus and are recovering in a hospital in Yichang.

Three other students and a teacher are in the hospital with other illnesses.

The bulk of the group — 25 students and five teachers — has been quarantined in a nearby hotel for a week, but were expected to be released Thursday.

Each student was being held in a different room with a television and phone. Hotel employees make food runs for the students, who were not allowed to have personal contact with anyone — not even each other.

“In the hotel, they’re kind of shouting across the hotel and calling each other,” Callaway said Wednesday.

Employees at Beijing’s swine flu command center and at the hotel say that the group was cleared for release Thursday. It was not clear when the hospitalized students and teachers would be released and allowed to return to California.

The group of 35 ninth-graders left for China on June 2. Before the quarantine, they climbed the Great Wall, explored the immense plazas of the Forbidden City and visited the Terra Cotta Warriors in the inland city of Xi’an.

The group had embarked on a river cruise to Three Gorges Dam when a handful of students and one teacher started feeling sick and saw a doctor on board.

Under the Chinese government’s protocol, the students and teacher were taken to a nearby hospital when the boat docked. Callaway said she didn’t know where the students contracted the virus. They didn’t have flu-like symptoms before the trip, she said.

The first cases of swine flu were discovered in Mexico and the United States, before cases started showing up in Asia.

At the school campus tucked away in the hills in Carlsbad, no one would comment on Wednesday, and all questions were referred to Callaway. Messages were left for Eileen Mullady, the head of the school, and Rick Sapp, chair of the board of trustees.

Sapp told local television station San Diego 6 that his 15-year old daughter is among the students in the hotel.

“When I first initially heard the word quarantine, we all get that sinking feeling from the nature of the word,” he said.

“She’s upbeat. She understands she’s in an unusual situation. She’s doing what kids normally do. She is entertaining herself by reading a book.”

Callaway said the group might hold an event on campus once they’re home to mark the end of the school year, which culminated Tuesday.

After the river cruise, the group was scheduled to head to Shanghai and stay with local families before returning to California.

The trip is tied to the ninth graders’ study of ancient history and water resources.

Pacific Ridge opened in 2007 as a college prep school beginning with the seventh grade.

The two boys showed flu symptoms on arrival, were given treatment and were recovering, Health Minister Abdullah al-Qahtani said in comments on state-run Qatar News Agency.

The first case was a two-year-old boy from New Zealand who arrived on Saturday with his family from Austria and the second was a two-and-a-half-year old American boy who came from New York on Sunday via Bangladesh, the minister said.

Flu cases have been detected in four other Gulf Arab states — Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Bahrain.

The number of cases of the flu, known as the H1N1 virus, has been climbing in Argentina and Chile in recent days as winter approaches in the Southern Hemisphere.

Argentine officials said they did not know exactly how the baby was infected with the virus, which contains genetic material from bird, swine and human flu viruses.

The World Health Organization said Monday that 76 countries had reported a total of 35,928 cases of the virus, with 163 deaths.

Croatia identified the first case of H1N1 flu virus in a patient who came from abroad last week and has already recovered, the health minister said on Monday.

“The patient showed mild flu symptoms and the test, the results of which we received today, confirmed the H1N1 virus,” Health Minister Darko Milinovic told reporters. “The patient underwent treatment at home and made a full recovery. He has already returned to work.”

He declined to give details of the patient but said no one in his family had shown flu symptoms.

“The deadline for incubation was yesterday. Therefore, there has been no transmission. And I want to stress that the patient took no medication, only tea, lemon and baths,” Milinovic said.

Is it safe to assume WHO waited a little too long on this one? Most people think swine flu is just a hoax and don’t really care about it even though it’s still a very serious matter. Should we panic? No. Should we hide inside and avoid all human interactions? No. Go about your regular routines but try to wash your hands a little more often when possible. You should be washing those hands of yours pretty often anyways. Did you know most people don’t wash their hands after using the restroom in public places? Gross, right?

I always keep a small bottle of sanitizer with me, just one of those habits I guess. I’m far from a germaphobe though, lol.

No one in my area has the swine flu as of yet, but I’m sure that will change within the near future. What’s it like in your area?

Chief Executive Donald Tsang made the announcement on Thursday after a meeting of the steering committee on the fight against the pandemic.

“We now migrate from the containment phase to the new mitigation phase,” he said.

Twelve students from St. Paul’s Convent School in Causeway Bay were confirmed to have contracted the A/H1N1 virus, which became the first local cluster of cases in the territory.

Tsang said it is inevitable Hong Kong would have local cases, but all citizens and the government have successfully postponed the arrival of the first indigenous case.

The Education Bureau and the Department of Health will monitor the situation daily, to decide whether or not classes will resume after the 14-day period.

The Hospital Authority will open on Saturday eight flu clinics for managing patients with influenza-like illness. The authority will expand the number of clinics to 18 if necessary, Tsang said.

He also urges the public not to panic. “The government will continue to be vigilant and fully prepared for the worst. There is no need for the public to panic but they must stay alert and pay high attention to personal and community hygiene.”

Secretary for Education Michael Suen says his bureau will make an announcement about whether or not schools will re-open on or before June 23, and different tests of primary schools will be canceled, finished or rescheduled.

Secretary for Food and Health York Chow said at a briefing, Hong Kong’s Fight the Pandemic campaign is now transiting from the containment to mitigation phase in gradual steps, by gearing up medical services and beefing up health advice to the public.

He noted that all public events can continue but the organizers should ensure the hygiene of the venues and urge the participants to pay attention to personal hygiene.

Hong Kong government will continues its current port health measures at border control points, including health declaration, temperature screening, and boarding of flights by port health officers when alerted by crew to sick passengers. Port Health will post notices at all exit points and advise all departure and transfer travelers not to travel if they are having fever or flu symptoms.

The Center for Health Protection will no longer perform tracing of social contacts, given that their risk approximates that of the general public since the disease has taken root in the community by this time.

Center for Health Protection Controller Thomas Tsang said the mother and younger brother of the 16-year-old St Paul’s Convent School student, who was confirmed to have the virus on Wednesday, are asymptomatic.

The center on Thursday confirmed one more imported case, bringing the total number of known human swine flu cases in Hong Kong to 61. The patient is a 43-year-old woman returning from a trip to Europe.

After Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin figured he could get through just about anything. But being held in quarantine in China amid swine flu concerns on what was supposed to be a simple economic development trip?

“It’s pretty surreal,” Nagin told The Associated Press Wednesday night, speaking from Australia hours after he, his wife, Seletha, and a security guard were released from the hotel they were taken to Sunday after a passenger on their flight from the U.S. exhibited flu-like symptoms.

“To be quarantined in China is just mind-boggling to me.”

The ordeal began Friday with coach seats on a 14-hour flight from Newark, N.J., to Shanghai. After meeting with government officials and a manufacturing company the city is courting, Nagin said he got a knock on his hotel room door from a “quarantine specialist” and others traveling with him, saying he had to go; a passenger in the row ahead of him had flu-like symptoms. He needed to be quarantined.

Nagin said he was taken by ambulance to an isolated and quiet hotel.

“When you see people coming toward you with full hazmat gear on, it’s pretty interesting,” he said. He described the people he dealt with as professional and nice, “but for the most part, you knew you really didn’t have an option.”

Someone would come to the room he and his wife shared every three to four hours to take their temperature. There weren’t many options for filling their hours — there was only one English-language TV station, for example, But he kept up with city business, including, he said, closing a deal to buy a downtown high-rise that could become the new City Hall.

He also read a lot, he and his wife talked a lot, and, if there was an upside, he said he probably slept the most he has during his seven years in office.

Nagin is set to return to New Orleans Monday, after the second half of an overseas trip that includes scheduled speeches in Sydney on climate change and sustainable building.