CAIRO, Egypt – A foreign students' dormitory for the American University in Cairo has been put under quarantine for seven days Monday after two U.S. students were diagnosed with swine flu, health and university officials said.
The two cases were discovered Sunday night after the students exhibited flu-like symptoms and tested positive for the virus. They were hospitalized and given Tamiflu, said a Health Ministry statement.
"The building and the people inside it have been put under supervised quarantine, their temperatures are being been checked, and swabs have been taken from their throats and mouth and sent to laboratories," said Nasser el-Sayyed, an assistant health minister in the statement.
"Some others have exhibited high temperatures and sore throats," he added. The ministry said that there were 234 people in the dorm, including 110 students from 10 different countries and they would be checked daily over the coming week.
The 23-year-old students, a male from New Jersey and a female from Florida, arrived from the U.S. on May 28 for a summer program at the university, but didn't exhibit symptoms until Friday.
Every year hundreds of foreign students take classes at AUC, which has a 5,500 person student body, 81 percent of whom are Egyptian.
Police cordoned off the dorm building and sealed off part of the road leading to it, only allowing in dozens of pizza boxes.
The dormitory is located in Zamalek, an upper class neighborhood of Cairo, home to many foreigners and embassies.
The university itself recently relocated to the desert outskirts of the capital.
AUC issued a statement saying that classes will be suspended until Sunday while the graduation ceremony scheduled June 16 and 18 will be held as planned.
Egypt announced its first confirmed swine flu case June 2 after an Egyptian-American girl arriving in the country tested positive.
Travelers arriving in Egypt are photographed, their body temperature scanned and addresses taken down in case further follow up is necessary.
Egypt's government has come under criticism for its decision to slaughter the nation's 300,000 pigs in response to the swine flu problem.
The move has elicited widespread criticism from international animal rights groups and was described as unnecessary by the World Health Organization.
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