Published: Monday May 11, 2009 MYT 12:28:00 PM

China confirms first swine flu case on mainland

BEIJING (AP) - China on Monday confirmed a 30-year-old student just back from the United States as its first case of swine flu on the mainland and has quarantined dozens of other people who were on a flight with him.

The 30-year-old patient surnamed Bao tested positive for Type A H1N1 influenza, said an official with China's Center for Disease Control and Prevention who refused to give his name in accordance with standard practice.

Bao, who was studying at the University of Missouri in the United States, is the first case of swine flu confirmed on the Chinese mainland and the country's second in the global outbreak that has killed at least 53 people but has largely spared Asia.

Bao left St. Louis, Missouri, Thursday, on a flight that went to Tokyo via St. Paul, Minnesota. In Tokyo he took a Northwest Airlines flight to Beijing on Friday that arrived Saturday and then got on a different plane to Chengdu, the capital of southwestern Sichuan province, the Health Ministry said.

On the last flight, Bao started experiencing symptoms that included a fever, sore throat, cough and a runny nose. He went straight to a hospital for treatment upon arrival and was diagnosed as a suspected Type A H1N1 influenza case, the health ministry said.

Sixty-three of the 150 passengers from the flight from Beijing to Chengdu have been located and placed in quarantine, while Bao's condition was stable, the Chengdu municipal government said in a press release. CCTV reported that the number in quarantine had risen to 84.

Bao was transferred to the Chengdu Infectious Disease Hospital and people who came into close contact with him during his medical examination have also been put under medical surveillance, the statement said. The Health Ministry has urged passengers aboard the last two flights Bao was on to contact medical authorities as soon as possible. The ministry would not say how many passengers who had been on the flight from Tokyo to Beijing were tracked down.

China has been accused in the past of not acting quickly enough to combat the spread of diseases, especially the 2003 global outbreak of SARS. Chastened by that experience and subsequent threats from avian flu, the government this time has acted quickly and decisively to block an outbreak, but some of its measures have been criticized as excessive.

The swine flu-prevention measures include bans on imports of pork from Mexico, some U.S. states and Alberta in Canada. Beijing has also canceled the only direct flights between China and Mexico, a twice-weekly service by Aeromexico. Authorities require arriving travelers with flu-like symptoms to report themselves and have placed some travelers under weeklong quarantines.

China's tough measures have drawn complaints from Mexico that their citizens were being quarantined based merely on their nationality. Mexico's government on Sunday called China's treatment of its citizens unacceptable and pulled out of a Shanghai trade fair in protest of China's anti-swine flu measures.

China has defended the steps as necessary to block swine flu from entering the world's most populous nation. The Chinese territory of Hong Kong earlier reported a case of swine flu diagnosed in a 25-year-old Mexican who flew to the city via Shanghai. - AP

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