The Centers for Disease Control’s Central Disease Command Center yesterday asked the seven passengers who were on board the same flight as the second confirmed swine flu patient in Hong Kong to contact the center for testing.
The center’s spokesperson Shih Wen-yi (施文儀) said the infected Hong Kong passenger left for the US on April 29 and arrived in San Francisco on May 2. The patient then left Las Vegas on May 5 and returned to San Francisco on Sunday, where he was scheduled to return to Hong Kong.
The flight was identified as Cathay Pacific Airlines CX879, Shih said. The patient started to show flu symptoms on May 6 and was detained by Hong Kong inspection and quarantine officers at the airport when he arrived on Monday.
Those sitting near the infected passenger — three rows ahead and three rows behind — were required to take preventive medication.
Shih said seven passengers who boarded CX879 and arrived in Hong Kong on Monday had entered Taiwan this week. It was confirmed that none of the passengers sat close to the infected passenger, Shih said. Shih said the center had to yet to decide whether these seven passengers should be inspected or be asked to take preventive medication. Nonetheless, the center wanted the seven passengers to contact them immediately.
Shih also advised the public to avoid visiting the West Coast of the US as the flu outbreak there is now widespread.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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