China’s health ministry confirmed yesterday the first case of swine flu involving a person infected with the virus inside the country.
In an earlier statement, the ministry had identified the patient as a 24-year-old woman in Guangdong Province who had been in close contact with a confirmed carrier of the A(H1N1) virus.
The woman works as a make-up artist at a photo studio in Guangzhou and came in contact with the confirmed case when he and his girlfriend had wedding photos taken on Monday and Tuesday, it said.
On Wednesday, she developed a headache and a fever, and after she was hospitalized, Guangzhou health officials identified her as a suspected swine flu case before confirming it.
The health ministry said the man she came into contact with was a 28-year-old Chinese-American employed at a hospital in New York, who had flown to Guangzhou on Sunday.
Two other suspected cases in Shenzhen have also been confirmed, the health ministry said.
The most recent WHO report said 15,510 people in 53 countries had been infected with the A(H1N1) virus since it was first uncovered last month. There have been 99 deaths.
Meanwhile, swine flu appears to have spread from crew to passengers on a cruise ship off Australia. The 2,000-passenger ship was diverted to a port in Queensland after the liner’s owner said up to five passengers were suspected of being infected after an outbreak among the crew. The five will be tested.
“We are being extremely cautious in our testing arrangements for anybody who presents themselves with flu-like symptoms,” P&O Cruises spokeswoman Ann Sherry told reporters.
The Pacific Dawn cut short a voyage on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef after three crew members were confirmed on Thursday to have the virus. P&O said all three had been aboard the same ship on a South Pacific cruise last week in which dozens of passengers were infected.
The cruise began in Sydney on Monday with the passengers unaware that scores of passengers from the previous cruise who had disembarked that day had flu symptoms.
In Sydney, a New Zealand couple who caught swine flu on the previous cruise were evicted from a hotel after their infections were confirmed.
Health authorities had told passengers from outside Sydney to isolate themselves in hotels for a week rather than travel home and risk infecting others. But Sydney hotels now fear their presence is harming business.
“We’re not expected to house people who subsequently show that they’ve got the disease and we’re not expected to be hospitals,” Australian Hotels Association chief executive Bill Healey told reporters.
The couple left with masked health officials, who relocated them.
And in Britain, officials at Eton say they have canceled classes for a week at the prestigious private school after a 13-year-old student tested positive for swine flu.
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