First domestic flu case is confirmed

By Lan Tian in Beijing and Zheng Caixiong in Guangzhou (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2009-05-29 21:24

The Ministry of Health reported on Friday the first instance of the A(H1N1) flu virus being transmitted on the Chinese mainland, but experts said there was no need to panic.

The woman became the sixth confirmed patient in Guangdong province, but what made her case remarkable was the fact that she caught the illness in China and not overseas, as happened with all of China’s other cases of A(H1N1).

The woman is a 24-year-old cosmetician who works at a photography studio in Guangzhou. She had close contact with a Chinese-American man when the man and his fiancée used the studio for wedding photographs on May 25 and May 26, the ministry said.

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A（H1N1）Influenza Outbreak

The 28-year-old man was later confirmed as Guangdong’s third flu patient by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The man works in a hospital in New York and took flight OZ221 at 12:30 pm on May 23 from New York to Incheon City in the Republic of Korea. From there, he took flight OZ369 at 7:50 am on May 24 to Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong. He developed flu symptoms after his arrival and went to hospital on May 27.

Both the woman from the photography studio and the Chinese-American man were in stable condition, the ministry said.

In all, Guangdong reported four new confirmed cases on Friday.

The ministry sent an expert team to Guangdong on Friday and held a national teleconference in which officials explained how they will deploy control measures.

The ministry urged Guangdong health bureau to conduct an epidemiological investigation and track those who had close contact with the confirmed patients.

Guangdong plans to raise its alert level. Currently, the province that borders Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions is at the level that indicates the virus has not spread between people domestically.

“When the alarm level is issued, it means the influenza has begun to spread between persons in a small group of residents,” said Huang Fei, deputy director-general of the provincial health bureau.

He urged the relevant authorities across the province to treat and cure patients with great care and take effective and concrete measures to fight the disease.

Experts said the domestic infection was inevitable.

“It is only a matter of time for community infection to hit the Chinese mainland,” said Guan Yi, a microbiology professor at the University of Hong Kong. “But the government should consider adjusting its control measures to fit the growing epidemic situation.”

Xu Ruiheng, a doctor with Guangdong provincial centre of disease control, said it is impossible to block the flu at the border.

“Our aim is to try to control its scale and speed of spread to win time for medical research and a vaccine,” he said.

Xu urged residents not to panic but pay more attention to personal hygiene and remain positive.

The pandemic has not affected the normal lives of Guangzhou residents.

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