Spendid isolation for children in quarantine from panic syndrome

As if on cue, a small Chinese Harry Potter lookalike raced out of the Hogwarts-like hall of the East Dene Centre. Beaming broadly beneath his round spectacles, the nine-year-old looked anything but lethal.

"Harry" – along with 136 other public school pupils from the Far East segregated upon their return to the UK due to the Sars outbreak in their homeland of Hong Kong and China – was immune to the fact he had become a figure of fear.

But the woman who took these children in when 30 boarding schools insisted they go through a 10-day observation period has not been shielded from the furore surrounding their arrival at the Isle of Wight activity centre.

Denea Wright was threatened with the police when two Asian-looking girls – not her charges – were spotted on the beach. She endured calls from locals asking whether their lives would be threatened if the wind changed.

The children's presence has inspired the proliferation of an epidemic even more virulent than severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) – panic.

With news that Sars has now spread to 28 countries, with 4,600 cases and 264 deaths, the Isle of Wight tourist board has complained that the presence of the children could affect trade. One spokesman reportedly called it a disaster worse than foot-and-mouth.

Now Ms Wright and her band of cheerful nine to 16-year-olds have become a focal point for national concern. The fact that there have been only six cases in the UK is apparently immaterial.

Yesterday – as she emerged from the pleasant seaside manor house where the Victorian poet laureate Algernon Swinburne once composed his verses – Ms Wright's exasperation was evident.

"Welcome to the detention camp. So you got past the 'barbed wire and guards'," she joked, obviously fed up with the misconception that the youngsters were being kept in some draconian quarantine.

Yesterday the situation could not have been further from the truth. There was no evidence of barbed wire or even the white face masks which have come to characterise the illness as youngsters played everything from chess to table tennis. Unable to leave the grounds or visit the rocky beach below, they have been kept constantly entertained. With the archery session over, plans were put in place for a game of rounders.

Within the oak-panelled, stained-glass windowed halls of a manor house which has counted Queen Victoria and Charles Dickens among its visitors, huddles of children had their heads bent over computer games or piles of revision. Within the same grounds, youngsters from a French group carried on with their activities after their parents felt little need to cancel their visit.

"The children are adorable, they have such charm. They are philosophical. I don't think kids see any real risk until it starts to hit them and there has been a very relaxed atmosphere," Ms Wright explained. "But I have had irate phone calls. One man said he had seen two Chinese girls on the beach and if they didn't get off in four minutes he would call the police. It is very easy for people to criticise when you are working 23 hours to try and keep up with a continually changing situation. I have had to work very hard to try and reassure people."

After eight days, none of the pupils has displayed any symptoms. While they have been screened daily, the greatest ailment to confront local medical staff has been a stubbed toe.

The youngsters, who arrived just before Easter, are finally due to move on to their respective schools on Monday. Few seemed inclined to make the journey.

"I don't want to go back to school. I like the noodles here," one 11-year-old said.

Ms Wright, managing director of the centre, was asked to take on the children by the Association of Guardianship Services, which looks after overseas pupils in this country, after 30 of its 500 member schools requested a 10-day isolation period. After consulting the Public Health Laboratory Services, which has advised that symptom-free children should be allowed to return to school, Ms Wright felt little need for drastic measures but merely wanted to keep an eye on her charges.