Quarantined in Ecuador, Justin-Siena students now home and healthy

By NATALIE HOFFMAN
Register Staff Writer

Fifteen Justin-Siena High School students are thrilled to be home after spending at least four days quarantined in an Ecuador hotel room following a swine flu scare.

Along with seven Novato High School students, the teens were part of a group that left California on June 18 for a scholastic trip to Peru and Ecuador, with a planned stop at the Galapagos Islands.

A male Novato High student in the group tested positive for H1N1 — the swine flu virus — after becoming ill last week while the students visited Quito, Ecuador.

The student was hospitalized before making a full recovery. Ecuadorian officials mandated a quarantine for the remaining 14 students, who spent several days cooped up in their hotel room rather than visiting the island archipelago famed for its exotic species.

Justin-Siena principal Noel Hesser said he joined a group of about a dozen flower-wielding parents who welcomed the students back onto California soil at the San Francisco International Airport on Sunday around 10:15 a.m.

“The mood was very upbeat,” he said. “There (were) a number of parents who had come to the airport and everyone was just relieved to be home. ... Just being back in the U.S. and out of the quarantine situation.”

Hesser, who said the Justin-Siena students preferred not to go public about their quarantine experiences, stated that although the group was glad to be home, students indicated that the lockdown itself wasn’t all that bad.

“It was fun the first day — an adventure,” he said. “The second day, it was still OK. But I think by the third day, they were getting stir crazy. I had one girl who told me that she’d be sleeping outdoors for the next week.”

Hesser said that no other students contracted swine flu besides the unidentified Novato High student. Napa County health officials on Monday could not confirm details regarding how long the quarantine lasted, who contracted the virus or whether any of the students received Tamiflu doses as a precautionary measure.

Like Hesser, Novato High School Principal Rey Mayoral said all seven of his students are home safely, including the male who tested positive for swine flu.

“I received an e-mail today from one of my assistant principals who received an e-mail from the teacher,” he said. “All of the kids are home and all of them are safe and sound.”

Hesser said although the students were stuck inside their hotel room for several days, there is a bright side to the ordeal.

“I think it was a good lesson for all the students to see how international agencies work together and (how) governments work. ... As far as the quarantine (goes), they were taken good care of. They were in a hotel,” he said. “(Still), they were very excited to be out and home.”

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