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Loopholes in disease monitoring exposed

By Wang Zhuoqiong (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-05-14 07:29

The Chinese mainland and Hong Kong Wednesday confirmed their second cases of H1N1 flu, exposing shortcomings in the nation's monitoring system.

The Ministry of Health said Wednesday a 19-year-old student surnamed Lu, confirmed to have the virus, was "recovering and his temperature is back to normal."

Lu left Beijing by train D41 on Monday evening for Jinan, the capital of Shandong, and called the provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) while on the train.

He had arrived in Beijing from Canada last Friday. A spokesman for the Canadian embassy said Wednesday that Lu boarded Air Canada flight AC029 in Toronto at noon on May 7 and stopped over in Vancouver.

Lu's girlfriend, a 17-year-old surnamed Zhang who traveled with him and later went home to Tianjin in a car, was also quarantined Wednesday.

She has shown no symptoms of the virus, the Tianjin health department said Wednesday.

The developments came two days after a 30-year-old man surnamed Bao was found to have contracted the virus after returning from the United States. He was also said to be recovering well in Chengdu, Sichuan province.

In Hong Kong, a 24-year-old resident was confirmed Wednesday to have contracted the virus. The unidentified man took Cathay Pacific flight CX879 from San Francisco and arrived in Hong Kong at 7 pm on Monday with a sore throat, said Dr Thomas Tsang, controller at the city's Center for Health Protection.

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The man, who checked into an airport clinic before being taken to hospital, was said to be in a stable condition.

The discovery comes nearly two weeks after Hong Kong confirmed its first patient, a 25-year-old Mexican whose entry in the city led authorities to lockdown a downtown hotel.

Fifty-one passengers sitting three rows in front of and behind the latest Hong Kong patient have been traced.

Six of them who were in Hong Kong were quarantined, while the remaining 45 had left the city.

The patient passed the infrared thermal screening at the airport because his fever was not high enough, Tsang explained, adding that he expects more such "imported" cases.

On the mainland, the Jinan Railway Bureau said it did not receive any notification from the local CDC about the latest case.

A Ministry of Railways official, who did not want to be named, said Lu is related to a Jinan CDC employee and was picked up by the local CDC without informing the local railway authorities.

The lack of communication has made tracing fellow passengers difficult, he said.

Of the 44 in the same carriage as Lu, 19 have been quarantined and did not show any flu symptoms Wednesday.

Photo taken on May 12, 2009 shows the Jinan Infectious Disease Hospital where a man surnamed Lv was confirmed case of A (H1N1) influenza receives treatment, in Jinan, capital of east China's Shandong Province. [Xinhua]

"This is not simply an issue of lack of communication between government departments, it is dereliction of duty," said Xue Lan, dean of the School of Public Policy and Management at Tsinghua University.

The General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine has found 79 new people with influenza symptoms at borders during the first two days of the week, taking the total to 697 such cases.

Zeng Guang, chief epidemiology expert at the China Center for Diseases Prevention and Control, said the urgent task is to make the monitoring network respond more quickly.

He said there is no need to panic, given the low mortality rate of the disease. "It is perfectly normal to have new cases in the country the key is still early discovery," he said.

The World Health Organization said Wednesday that nearly 6,000 people in 33 countries have been infected by the H1N1 virus. In its latest tally, the WHO said the virus has killed at least 56 people in Mexico, three people in the United States, and one each in Canada and Costa Rica.

Ju Chuanjiang, Peggy Chan and Xin Dingding contributed to the story