INQUIRER Sports

SINGAPORE?Singapore has quarantined 19 members of a Philippine youth football team after one player tested positive for swine flu ahead of a regional sports competition, officials said Sunday.

The 17 players and two coaches were brought to a beach resort set up to isolate foreigners for quarantine purposes, and strict checks are to be carried out on all incoming participants in the Asian Youth Games.

They were brought to the beach resort on Saturday and would be there for seven days, Alvin Hang, spokesman for the games' organizing committee, told AFP.

He said a team doctor accompanying the Filipinos was also under quarantine at the beach resort.

The football player, 14, who tested positive for A(H1N1) flu, is currently at the Communicable Disease Centre and is in a stable condition, said Hang.

Organizers are not postponing the Asian Youth Games involving some 1,400 athletes from 45 countries.

They officially start on June 29 and are scheduled to end on July 7 but football eliminations began Saturday.

Singapore said late Saturday there were another 23 new cases of A(H1N1) including the Filipino footballer, bringing the total in the city-state so far to 126.