The human swine flu toll in Asia grew yesterday as Australia’s infections more than doubled and Japan and South Korea announced new cases, helping to push the global total to almost 13,000.
Singapore confirmed its first case while Hong Kong, where Asia’s first infection from the A(H1N1) virus sparked a week-long quarantine of around 300 guests and staff at a city hotel, announced a fresh total of 10.
All cruise liners docking in Sydney will be treated as potential swine flu sites and passengers will be held on board until the ship is cleared under tough new measures launched in Australia yesterday.
The protocols were tightened after authorities came under fire for allowing 2,000 passengers off the Pacific Dawn to voluntarily self-quarantine in the community, despite a suspected outbreak of swine flu on board. Twenty passengers have since been diagnosed with the virus, with another three suspected cases among a fresh group of guests on board the ship, which was yesterday headed to the Great Barrier Reef.
All the ship’s crew had been given a course of anti-viral drugs and Health Minister Nicola Roxon said there would be a “significant increase in the number of cases that are confirmed, particularly in the coming days.”
As the number of confirmed cases hit 66, authorities in New South Wales state said they would ramp up their response to cruise ships docking in Sydney.
Meanwhile, Japan has seen a rapid rise in confirmed cases, saying yesterday it had more than 350. The figure included eight people who had tested positive at Narita international airport near Tokyo, the health ministry said.
Two more cases confirmed in South Korea, raising the country’s total number of people infected with the virus to 29.
The new cases were found in a 22-year-old South Korean woman who arrived from Texas last week and in a South African teacher, a health ministry spokesman said.
When Shanghai-based designer Guo Qingshan posted a vacation photo on Valentine’s Day and captioned it “Puppy Mountain,” it became a sensation in China and even created a tourist destination. Guo had gone on a hike while visiting his hometown of Yichang in central China’s Hubei Province late last month. When reviewing the photographs, he saw something he had not noticed before: A mountain shaped like a dog’s head rested on the ground next to the Yangtze River, its snout perched at the water’s edge. “It was so magical and cute. I was so excited and happy when I discovered it,” Guo said.
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Chinese authorities said they began live-fire exercises in the Gulf of Tonkin on Monday, only days after Vietnam announced a new line marking what it considers its territory in the body of water between the nations. The Chinese Maritime Safety Administration said the exercises would be focused on the Beibu Gulf area, closer to the Chinese side of the Gulf of Tonkin, and would run until tomorrow evening. It gave no further details, but the drills follow an announcement last week by Vietnam establishing a baseline used to calculate the width of its territorial waters in the Gulf of Tonkin. State-run Vietnam News
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