DENVER -- The Aspen school district is asking students returning from Mexico and a school-sponsored trip to San Diego to stay home from school for a week as a precaution against spreading the swine flu.

District officials have asked 23 sixth-graders who worked in soup kitchens around San Diego to stay home until May 11 and are contacting the parents of 14 children returning from Mexico. They say the students were in areas with high incidences of the flu.

Students who were in New Mexico to work with school children from Mexico aren't being asked to stay home because they were in an isolated environment.

There have been two confirmed cases of swine flu in Colorado. The Douglas County man and Arapahoe County woman have recovered.

Colorado health officials are waiting for the test results from six more people.

Udall To Tour CSU Disease Center

U.S. Sen. Mark Udall is headed to Colorado State to learn more about swine flu.

The Democrat tours an infectious disease center at the Fort Collins university Saturday and talks with two professors about the flu. Colorado State researchers study diseases that can be spread from animals to people. They're called zoonotic diseases.

Scientists believe the swine flu outbreaks worldwide are a strain of flu that originated in pigs. The virus has sickened hundreds worldwide, including at least two people in Colorado.

Friday, health officials moved anti-viral medicines to more than a dozen locations around the state to help treat a potential outbreak.

It is an unprecedented move to get medicine in place before the virus begins a rapid spread.

“The highest priority for the antiviral stockpile is to meet unmet needs in communities around Colorado,” said Ned Calonge, Colorado’s chief medical officer. “The antiviral drugs are primarily intended for use with severely ill patients in hospitals.”

Overnight, drugs from the Strategic National Stockpile were moved to 13 locations across Colorado: Alamosa, Arapahoe, Boulder, Denver, Eagle, El Paso, Jefferson, La Plata, Larimer, Mesa, Otero, Pueblo and Weld counties.

“The success is a tribute to the partnership between state and local levels,” said Jennifer Trainer, the medicine coordinator for the Colorado Department of Public Health.

Calonge issued a reminder that, in the United States, the H1N1 virus has been acting like seasonal flu and is a relatively mild disease, although he expects, as with seasonal flu, to see a spectrum of illness.

“Every year, approximately 36,000 Americans die from seasonal flu,” Calonge said. “The rate in Colorado is about 780 deaths per year from seasonal flu. We need to understand that the 2009 H1N1 virus could lead to deaths, just as the seasonal flu does.”

Calonge reiterated that there is no reason for people to get tested if they have mild symptoms and they should remain at home to recover. People who are sick with severe symptoms, such as difficulty breathing, or who also have additional, significant health problems, should contact their health-care provider.

“The ability to test is a limited resource,” Calonge said. “Testing and treatment with antiviral drugs should be reserved for people who become seriously ill or who have additional serious health problems.”

Tests from six suspected Colorado cases of H1N1 have been sent to the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, said spokesman Mark Salley.

Results are pending.

People who have questions about the H1N1 virus can call the department’s CO-HELP line at 1-877-462-2911 between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. over the weekend and 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. Mondays through Fridays.

Earlier in the week, state health officials had said the anti-viral medicines would be mostly Tamiflu, with some courses of Relenza as well.

They stressed individuals cannot expect to go to local public health agencies to have prescriptions for these medications filled.

The belief among health professionals is that the commercial supply of these drugs will catch up with demand in the ongoing fight against the H1N1 virus.