Students released from flu-ridden camp

(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-10-30 10:37

Freshmen from Beihang University at a military training camp in south Beijing's Daxing district, where one student died Tuesday from A(H1N1) influenza, were permitted to leave yesterday.

Students who had passed the health screenings started exiting yesterday morning and were collected by private cars outside the camp near Weishanzhuang Township.

A freshman from the School of Aeronautical Science and Engineering died from the flu virus early Tuesday morning. Symptoms had reportedly been spreading since last Thursday.

A total of 71 students at the camp of 3,000 failed the camp's medical check, with 28 students being confirmed to have contracted the virus and sent to Daxing People's Hospital. No new cases were reported among students yesterday though, according to the hospital's fever emergency department.

Students are now wearing facemasks on the university campus. They were asked yesterday to start recording their daily temperatures.

University authorities also disinfected the building and dormitories where the dead student lived.

The university sealed off the venues for its biannual science competition, in which more than 4,000 visitors from universities nationwide are participating.

"All departments should avoid holding multiple person activities, and the school will ensure disease prevention measures are carried out during this year's science competition," the university said, in a statement on its website yesterday afternoon.

Jia Jinzhao, a competitor from Qinghai University in west China, said Beihang university provided them with facemasks yesterday but he did not wear his.

"I study veterinary science and I know the H1N1 flu virus will not kill a person unless you have other serious diseases," said the student, who will stay on campus for one week.

"The death does not worry me," he told METRO.

No new serious infections of the H1N1 flu virus have been reported in Beijing recently, but flu patients continue to flood hospitals. The Beijing health bureau confirmed there have been 6,196 cases of H1N1 influenza in the city so far.

Sinovac Biotech, which produces the world's first vaccine against the virus, has been asked by the Ministry of Health to produce another 5 million vaccines by Dec 12.