After a Chinese man recently returned from the United States was tested and confirmed to be the first case of H1N1 swine flu on China’s mainland, the authorities ordered tighter monitoring of seasonal flu and reporting of H1N1 cases to China’s ministry of health.
The 30 year old man, a student studying in the US and identified only by the surname Bao, entered China on a flight from Tokyo, said the Wall Street Journal (WSJ).
Bao flew from the States to Tokyo where he boarded a plane to Beijing on Saturday and then took an internal flight to Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province.
According to a report in state run news agency Xinhua earlier today, vice health minister Ma Xiaowei announced at a teleconference late on Monday night that all city-level disease prevention and control authorities must set up monitoring departments, as must at least one hospital in each city.
Health Minister Chen Zhu was also at the teleconference. He said China must also increase its store of antivirals and vaccines.
Ma said it was inevitable that the new H1N1 flu virus that is sweeping its way around the world would enter China.
All China’s provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions on the mainland must now monitor seasonal flu all year round, he said.
Any suspected or confirmed cases of the new H1N1 flu must also be reported to the health ministry within two hours, said Ma.
Meanwhile the Chinese authorities are trying to quarantine all Bao’s fellow passengers. The WSJ reports that about 120 of the 143 passengers on the Tokyo flight have been contacted and health officials are trying to persuade them to enter quarantine. Some of the passengers are foreign nationals.
130 of the 150 passengers on the internal flight have been quarantined.
Bao appears to be recovering. He checked into a hospital on Sunday with flu symptoms and was tested using a rapid testing kit that was developed in China.
China was criticized for improperly handling the 2003 SARS outbreak and appears to be tackling the swine flu outbreak much more aggressively, although the way it has treated foreign nationals has come under criticism.
In Hong Kong the authorities kept nearly 300 hotel guests and employees in quarantine for over a week after they had been in contact with a Mexican traveller who had the swine flu.
Earlier this month the Mexican government criticized China’s seizing of 43 Mexican citizens and placing them in quarantine just because they were Mexican: none of them had swine flu.
The Mexican authorities viewed it as a clear case of discrimination on grounds of nationality and chartered a plane to bring them back to Mexico where they were received like heroes. The incident appears to have significantly cooled relations between the two countries.
Meanwhile at the University of Missouri in the United States, where Bao is a graduate student, the response has been much more relaxed. The University is not advising campus members to take any additional precautions other than step up basic hygiene, spokesman Christian Basi told the Associated Press.
A representative from the local county health department told the news agency that they were telling people who may have come into contact with Bao not to panic. She said the authorities were treating the situation like the seasonal flu, and there was no longer any need for intense investigation, she added.
Sources: Xinhua, Wall Street Journal, Associated Press, MNT archives.
Written by: Catharine Paddock, PhD