The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday said it had tracked down almost all of the 23 Taiwanese who took Northwest Airlines flight NW019 from St. Paul, Minnesota, to Tokyo last Friday after news that a Chinese man on the flight was infected with swine flu.
China confirmed yesterday that its first case of swine flu outside Hong Kong was a man who took the Northwest Airlines flight before flying on to Beijing and then Chengdu, Sichuan Province. Officials said the man was in stable condition.
The 23 Taiwanese passengers transferred in Tokyo to flight NW021 to Taipei, where they arrived late on Friday night.
PHOTO: EPA
Airline records showed that four of the Taiwanese on flight NW019 were seated within three rows of the Chinese passenger, CDC Deputy Director Shih Wen-yi (施文儀) said, adding that it was particularly important for these four to be tested.
At press time, 18 of them had been contacted. Four of the passengers had already left Taiwan and could not be contacted. The remaining person in Taiwan had yet to be located.
“The passengers did not show any symptoms at the airport, so they passed the [fever] inspection and left,” Shih said. “Now that the Chinese case has been confirmed, we need to make sure these passengers are alright.”
Shih said the CDC was awaiting word from China on whether any Taiwanese were on the Beijing-Chengdu flight.
News of the search for the 23 passengers came just hours after the CDC announced overnight that a mother and daughter suspected of having the new H1N1 strain had tested negative for the virus.
The 32-year-old woman returned to Taiwan with her 21-month-old daughter from Portland, Oregon, last Tuesday. She developed flu-like symptoms on Wednesday and went to see a doctor at Taipei City Hospital’s Jen ai branch.
The daughter developed similar symptoms on Friday.
By Sunday, they had visited three hospitals and were put into isolation at Municipal Hoping Hospital in Taipei on Sunday evening, after Taipei City Hospital alerted health authorities.
At a midnight press conference, Department of Health Minister Yeh Ching-chuan (葉金川) said there was a 90 percent chance that the mother would be the country’s first confirmed swine flu case.
But at around 2am, the CDC sent text messages to reporters saying that the pair were infected with the AH1 flu virus and not the H1N1 virus.
Chinese-language newspapers yesterday criticized the health department, saying it had scared people unnecessarily.
But Yeh said CDC officials and epidemiologists had done the right thing.
“We need to be extremely careful,” he said.
He said the test results had not been available until 2am, at which point he decided to inform the press by text message to get the word out as soon as possible.
“We needed to take it seriously and we did the right thing,” Yeh said. “We did not intend to panic anyone.”
Shih said the experience should be viewed as practical training. The flu virus that the mother and daughter had is very similar to swine flu, he said, which was the reason epidemiologists were concerned, he said.
“We learned a lesson and gained experience,” Shih said.
Meanwhile, China launched a search for passengers who had traveled on the same flights as the Sichuan man infected with the flu.
About 120 of the Tokyo-Beijing passengers had been found, Xinhua news agency said, quoting Beijing’s emergency response office.
There were 233 passengers on the flight, 106 of them foreigners, Chinese authorities said.
About 84 of the 150 passengers who traveled on the Beijing-Chengdu flight had been found and put under quarantine with no apparent symptoms, China Central Television said.
In response to the confirmed swine flu case, Mainland Affairs Council yesterday issued a yellow travel alert, advising travelers to China to exercise caution.
Council Deputy Chairman Liu Te-shun (劉德勳) urged travelers to take precautions both before leaving for China and while there.
Liu said the council had asked the Straits Exchange Foundation to caution Taiwanese businesspeople in China.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY KO SHU-LING, DPA AND AFP
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