DENVER - H1N1 is keeping kids with asthma home from camp this summer.
The American Lung Association has advised its affiliated camps to close, including one in Colorado that was scheduled to begin next week. Champ Camp in Ward was a traditional sleep-away week-long camp for boys and girls with asthma -- no campfires allowed.
The decision came after four campers were hospitalized when they became sick at an affiliated camp in Julian, Calif., said Heather Grzelka, spokeswoman for the Washington-based Lung Association.
Grzelka said the association has about 50 affiliated camps across the U.S., but that they are not run by her group and that she wasn't sure how many would close.
The American Lung Association of the Southwest called off three summer camps -- the Champ Camp, plus camps in Tooele, Utah, and Reno, Nev. All were scheduled for July.
"We just became increasingly worried," said Curt Huber, director of the American Lung Association of Colorado. "Anywhere kids sleep together and eat in the same room, this is going to be a worry."
Grzelka said kids with asthma or other respiratory diseases are at greater risk from H1N1.
"It poses a special health risk to children with asthma," Grzelka said.
Similar concerns have prompted at least 50 summer camps across the United States to cancel sessions or send campers home early. Last month, the Tucson-Ariz.-based Muscular Dystrophy Association cancelled 47 camps in 35 states, a decision affecting some 2,500 campers.
A spokesman for the American Lung Association of California did not immediately return a call about the sicknesses at a camp in that state.
