The number of patients at a southwest China civil aviation college confirmed as having contracted A/H1N1 influenza rose to 35 Thursday.

Health authorities have finished medical examination of 1,075 students and 126 teaching staff on the Qingyang campus of the Sichuan Southwest College of Civil Aviation based in Chengdu City, capital of Sichuan Province, the Sichuan Provincial Health Department said.

All 35 patients were in stable condition, according to the Chengdu Infectious Disease Hospital where they were being treated.

Classes were suspended at the college Wednesday after seven students were diagnosed as having A/H1N1. Classes started Sunday after the students moved to the Qingyang campus following nearly a month of military training in Qionglai City, the department said.

Students who developed symptoms and who have had close contact with the patients were put under medical observation.

The health and education departments started Thursday to conduct medical checks for A/H1N1 influenza in schools and colleges across the province.

There have been another eight cases of the flu confirmed in a college in Qingdao City in east China's Shandong Province, an official with the provincial health bureau said Thursday.

The eight patients, all males, of Qingdao Technological University have been quarantined, the official said.

Thirty-one of 109 patients from the No. 3 Senior Middle School in Xin'an County in central China's Henan Province left hospital on Thursday, a provincial government official said. The remainder of the quarantined patients were in stable condition.

As of 3:00 PM Wednesday, China had reported 3,981 A/H1N1 cases, of whom 3,391 had recovered. No deaths have been reported.

Globally, the disease had killed about 2,000 people and infected more than 180,000. It is circulating in more than 170 countries.

(Xinhua News Agency September 4, 2009)