China and Hong Kong yesterday both reported their second confirmed cases of swine flu.
In China, a 19-year-old student identified only by the surname Lu reported his symptoms to health authorities by telephone on Monday night while he was aboard a train from Beijing to his home province of Shandong, the Health Ministry said.
Lu, who arrived in Beijing from Canada on Friday aboard Air Canada flight AC029, recorded a temperature of 39˚C, a sore throat and headache.
PHOTO: AP
He was isolated at a hospital in the Shandong provincial capital of Jinan. Test results yesterday morning confirmed Lu’s infection with the H1N1 virus, the ministry said.
In Hong Kong, a 24-year-old man who recently returned from the US was put into an isolation ward in the city’s Princess Margaret Hospital and was confirmed as having the H1N1 virus after his admission, a Department of Health spokesman said.
China’s first confirmed H1N1 patient was recovering in the southwestern province of Sichuan after falling sick following his return from the US via Tokyo and Beijing.
More than 350 passengers who traveled on the same two flights as the 30-year-old man were placed in seven-day quarantine, the ministry said.
Chinese authorities also put 103 guests and employees at a Beijing airport hotel where the swine-flu patient stayed for a few hours on Saturday under quarantine.
At least nine foreigners are among the isolated guests, the China News Service said.
The Civil Aviation Administration of China has begun requiring air travelers to fill in health declarations before boarding domestic flights.
Airports must now check the temperatures of transiting passengers who arrive on international flights, the authority said in a statement.
It was not clear if the government would also strengthen checks on domestic train travelers.
HONG KONG
A 24-year-old patient in Hong Kong was being held in isolation in hospital, Thomas Tsang, the controller of the Centre for Health Protection, told reporters.
A further six people who sat near the man on his flight from San Francisco were also being held in quarantine, along with the man’s family members who met him at the airport on Monday evening, Tsang said.
A further 45 people who sat near him on his journey had already left Hong Kong.
“He consulted a clinic at the airport and was taken to hospital. This patient did not enter the city,” Tsang said.
The man was in a stable condition, Tsang said.
Around 300 hotel guests and staff were quarantined for a week beginning May 1 when Hong Kong’s first swine-flu patient was found to have stayed at the Metropark Hotel in the city’s Wanchai district. Officials said they would not take such extreme quarantine measures again.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said yesterday that 33 countries were reporting laboratory confirmed human cases of infection with the new A(H1N1) influenza virus.
The three countries included since Tuesday were Cuba, with one case, and Finland and Thailand, each reporting two cases.
There were 5,728 confirmed cases worldwide and 61 deaths, according to the latest figures posted on the WHO’s Web site yesterday.
Mexico had 2,059 infections, including 56 deaths.
The US has reported 3,009 cases, including three deaths. There was one death in Canada from 358 instances and Costa Rica has reported eight cases, including one death.
There were no deaths from the virus outside of North America, which is also the only region to have confirmed cases of sustained human-to-human transmission of the disease.
In Europe, the hardest hit countries were Spain with 98 cases and Britain, which reported 68.
Also See: Foreign ministry to probe WHO’s map color choice
Also See: CDC to test passengers on flu flight
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
SECURITY RISK: If there is a conflict between China and Taiwan, ‘there would likely be significant consequences to global economic and security interests,’ it said China remains the top military and cyber threat to the US and continues to make progress on capabilities to seize Taiwan, a report by US intelligence agencies said on Tuesday. The report provides an overview of the “collective insights” of top US intelligence agencies about the security threats to the US posed by foreign nations and criminal organizations. In its Annual Threat Assessment, the agencies divided threats facing the US into two broad categories, “nonstate transnational criminals and terrorists” and “major state actors,” with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea named. Of those countries, “China presents the most comprehensive and robust military threat
RSS