The University Health Center confirmed the count of H1N1 cases on campus has increased to 17 as of Monday.

Ronald Forehand, administrative director for the Health Center, said since June 17 there have been 17 students who have tested positive for influenza A – the seasonal flu.

“Of the 17, we submitted 10 samples to the Department of Public Health lab for testing, and all were confirmed to be H1N1 influenza,” he told The Red & Black. “DPH has told us that 98 percent of the samples they receive which are positive for influenza A are confirmed to be H1N1. So we assume that students with an influenza-like illness and a positive rapid test for influenza A here at the Health Center probably have H1N1 influenza and we no longer send their samples to DPH.”

Forehand said the Health Center has seen 12 other students with influenza-like symptoms whose test results came up negative. Those samples have since been sent out for further testing.

Several University students and two professors experienced firsthand in May how others around the world view H1N1.

The “Global Sourcing of Soft Goods” Maymester program in China was supposed to gain students credit for TXMI 5710 – but during the trip, they got a special crash course in Swine Flu 1101 as well.

“When we flew from Hong Kong to Nanjing, [flight officials] asked us who was from America or had been to America in the last two weeks,” Jill Kornau, a senior from Cincinnati, Ohio, said in a telephone interview Friday.

Kornau said the officials came around with an under-the-arm thermometer to take everyone’s temperature, and if the temperature was over a certain degree, the person had to be tested for H1N1.

Patricia Hunt-Hurst, department head for the textiles, merchandising and interiors department, was one of the professors on the trip. She said one of the University students had an elevated temperature of about 100 degrees.

Kornau said the group was ushered aside to a makeshift hospital in the airport where the girl’s temperature was taken several more times. The girl was then taken to a hospital, with Hunt-Hurst accompanying her, while the rest of the group was quarantined at the Nanjing Lukou International Airport.

Charles Gilbert, a professor in the textiles, merchandising and interiors department, stayed with the group in the airport.

In a phone interview Monday, he said they were given masks to wear, but were able to go through baggage claim and immigration while they were detained.

“Some students actually had Internet, and were texting their parents saying ‘we’ve been quarantined,’” he said.

Kornau said it was difficult to communicate with Chinese officials, who didn’t really tell them what was going on or where to go.

“There was no one watching to make sure we didn’t leave,” she said.

The group’s tour guide, for that reason, tried to take the students to a bus so they could get to their hotel instead of staying at the airport.

The first bus driver the travel guide found was not keen on letting the Americans anywhere near his vehicle.

“The bus driver saw us coming, locked his bus and left,” Gilbert said. “He was afraid we had swine flu and were going to infect him.”

Kornau said the bus driver wasn’t the only one afraid of their group.

“Tourists would cross to the other side of the street,” she said, “and if they didn’t already have masks, they would use their clothes to cover their faces.”

Gilbert said eventually the tour guide found a bus to take them to the hotel, but airport officials discovered the group had left and called the tour guide demanding they be returned immediately.

Meanwhile, Hunt-Hurst and the hospitalized student were unaware the rest of their group had not been allowed to go to the hotel.

The pair were sitting in a hospital room with two chairs and a bed, waiting for the student’s test results to come back.

“Originally they wanted to take blood,” Hunt-Hurst said in a phone interview Friday.

Instead, she said, they took swabs of the student’s throat, mouth and nostrils.

“[The doctors] said it would be about five hours for results,” she said.

Hunt-Hurst said nurses came in every 30 minutes to take the girl’s temperature. She said the student kept insisting she felt fine.

She said the doctors treated them well and were nice, even offering to find them an Americanized meal of Burger King or Kentucky Fried Chicken for dinner.

But the student was a vegetarian, so she declined the offer. Instead she was presented a specialty dinner of rice and vegetables – with duck on top.

The doctor came in several hours after the tests were taken and confirmed the student did not have H1N1. Hunt-Hurst said reasons for the fever could have been jet lag or even a change in diet.

On the drive from the hospital to the hotel, Hunt-Hurst received a call from Nicki Sauls, a student affairs professor in the College.

Sauls had heard from University President Michael Adams, who had been informed by worried parents that their children were detained in the airport.

One of the quarantined students called Hunt-Hurst as well, and she informed them of the all-clear. They arrived at the hotel around 8 p.m.

The students were also screened for flu-like symptoms before entering the Beijing Institute of Fashion, Kornau said.

Gilbert said that originally the University study abroad students were supposed to interact with some Chinese students, but were no longer allowed to due to fear of H1N1.

In a telephone interview Friday, Sauls said there were good evaluations of the program, despite the H1N1 scare, and students had a “fantastic experience” on the trip.

For students who will be traveling abroad this year, Forehand said his advice is the same as that from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This includes covering mouths and noses while coughing, washing hands, avoiding touching eyes and staying home for at least 24 hours if students suspect they have the flu.

He said students should be prepared to be screened at the airport, as the FACS study abroad group was, and if tests confirm H1N1, students will receive medical treatment.

Hunt-Hurst said she was not overly concerned the student had H1N1, as she had no other symptoms publicized by the CDC and the Health Center.

“It could’ve been worse but it wasn’t,” she said. “That’s why I said it’s a real adventure.”