Alarm over the potential introduction of swine flu in Taiwan eased yesterday as the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) announced that all 27 passengers who had shared a plane with Asia’s first confirmed swine flu case — a Mexican man traveling from Mexico to Hong Kong via Shanghai — tested negative.
A high school girl surnamed Ho (何) who admitted herself to the immigration quarantine center upon returning from Mexico on Saturday also tested negative yesterday, the CDC said. Ho was one of 30 students studying Spanish in Mexico on a month-long cultural exchange program. The other students are scheduled to return home in the coming days.
“Two of the 27 cases still need final confirmations in the three-stage test process. However, we can safely say that they are [testing] negative,” CDC spokesman Shih Wen-yi (施文儀) told a press conference yesterday afternoon.
PHOTO: PATRICK LIN, AFP
Following the test results, the passengers — who had been quarantined at home or in negative-pressure isolation rooms at hospital — were discharged.
“They will be asked to wear masks while going outside and to take Tamiflu once a day for the next 10 days. But they are free to go out as it is unlikely they would transmit the disease,” Department of Health (DOH) Minister Yeh Ching-chuan (葉金川) said.
Yeh said the government would release 2 million face masks from the national stockpile to the four major convenience store chains — 7-Eleven, Family Mart, Hi-life and OK — tomorrow to meet possible demand.
He said that people who are not sick should not hoard the masks.
“The country has enough disease-control material and can produce 1.52 million face masks a day. So rest assured, there will be enough for everybody,” he said.
Although the country’s threat level is presently at Level One, Yeh said it was highly probable it would be raised to Level Two after individual cases from abroad are identified.
Yeh said that even though 658 cases have been identified worldwide, the mortality rate of H1N1 outside Mexico was zero. The baby girl who died of H1N1 in the US had come from Mexico, where she was infected.
“With proper treatment, it appears that the flu is very treatable,” Yeh said. “People and the media should confront swine flu with science — knowledge of public health and personal hygiene — rather than imagination. Rather than spreading rumors that Taiwan is going to ‘fall,’ [to the disease] we should prove that we are an advanced country.”
Vice Premier Paul Chiu (邱正雄) said yesterday that the Level One threat level indicated that no cases had been identified domestically. The threat level guidelines were established yesterday at the third meeting of the Central Epidemics Command Center, with the levels using WHO standards, he said.
Meanwhile, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday that 16 Taiwanese tourists remained quarantined at a hotel in Hong Kong, but none showed flu-like symptoms.
Hong Kong on Friday quarantined for seven days 300 guests and staff at a hotel where a Mexican man had stayed after arriving from Shanghai. The 16 Taiwanese, including a family of seven, are among the quarantined guests.
MAC Deputy Minister Liu Te-shun (劉德勳) said yesterday that the council had been informed by the Hong Kong government late on Saturday night that the number of Taiwanese quarantined at the hotel was 16, not 13 as previously reported.
Liu said Hong Kong authorities had contacted the three other tourists to have a better understanding of the situation. Liu also telephoned Yang Chia-chun (楊家駿), the nation’s representative to Hong Kong, yesterday for updates on the situation.
To help the 16 Taiwanese better communicate with the outside world, Liu said Hong Kong authorities had provided them with notebook computers and six cellphones.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY KO SHU-LING AND DPA
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