China yesterday ordered stepped-up flu monitoring nationwide after confirming the country’s first swine flu case and said it had found and isolated nearly all those who traveled with the patient.
The national alert came one day after the government said a 30-year-old Chinese man had tested positive for the A(H1N1) virus after arriving in China from the US.
The health ministry ordered its departments nationwide to “completely and effectively control those who came in close contact with the flu sufferer.”
Government personnel were also ordered to step up emergency preparedness and stock up on appropriate medical materials.
The flu sufferer, identified by his surname Bao, was hospitalized after arriving in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, from the US via Tokyo and Beijing on Saturday.
He was the first confirmed case on the Chinese mainland. A case had previously been confirmed in Hong Kong on May 1 — a Mexican national who also was Asia’s first known sufferer.
State-run China Central Television said authorities had found and “isolated” 349 of Bao’s 383 fellow passengers on two flights — a Northwest Airlines jet from Tokyo to Beijing and a Beijing-Chengdu flight on Sichuan Airlines.
An official with the Beijing municipal health authority said that 78 foreigners were among those quarantined at a hotel in the capital for a seven-day observation period.
“Those with no symptoms will be taken to the hotel. If any begin to show symptoms, they will be taken to hospital,” said the man, who gave only his surname Ma.
Meanwhile, Swiss pharmaceuticals firm Roche Holding AG said yesterday it was donating 5.65 million packets of Tamiflu, one of two anti-viral drugs known to be effective against swine flu, to the WHO.
Roche said 5 million packets would be used to replenish stockpiles that were depleted when WHO sent previously donated supplies to poor countries after the appearance of a new type of swine flu, dubbed A(H1N1). A further 650,000 packets containing smaller doses of the drug will be used to create a new stockpile for children.
“The recent outbreak of influenza A (H1N1) shows that such a virus can be totally unexpected and spread rapidly around the globe,” Roche pharmaceuticals division head William Burns said.
Roche said it can make 110 million packets over the next five months — or about 22 million a month — and increase production capacity to 36 million a month by the end of the year if there is sufficient demand.
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