HONG KONG: The ordeal experienced last week by guests and staff at the Metropark Hotel will not be repeated. From now on, as cases of H1N1 flu are identified, hotels will face only partial quarantine.

The decision to revise practice came yesterday after two-day meetings of the Emergency Response Level Steering Committee chaired by Chief Executive Donald Tsang.

If the flu sufferer stayed in a hotel, only the floor where he stayed will be sealed off, rather than shutting down the whole building.

Guests on the same floor and housekeeping staff cleaning their rooms will be quarantined at isolation camps and required to take dosages of Tamiflu. Other guests will be put under medical surveillance.

In the case of schools or airline flights, only those in close contact with the index patient will be quarantined. This includes students and teachers in the same class and passengers sitting three rows in front of the patient and three rows behind.

The new strategy was refined after reviewing the city's first imported case over the past two weeks.

A Mexican tourist was confirmed to be infected with swine flu on May 1 and 300 staff and guests at Metropark Hotel in Wan Chai were confined for a week.

Research Response Group member Yuen Kwok-yung said no H1N1 virus was detected in the guests or close-contact persons. Only respiratory secretions but not feces or blood carry the virus.

"For the time being, the virus doesn't have tremendous contamination in the environment, so it's unnecessary to seal off the whole building," Yuen said.

Since there was only one confirmed case and no transmission throughout the community, the government plans to maintain the containment measures, including surveillance at the borders and it will maintain the policy of tracing contacts, to combat any outbreak of flu.

Secretary for Food and Health York Chow said the outbreak has proven less serious than expected. People should stay calm and prepare to prevent local transmission.

Yet he said the risk may increase when overseas students return to Hong Kong during summer. He urged those students to defer travel if they feel sick and report to crew members if they develop flu-like symptoms during flights.

"However, if the measures fail to prevent spread in the community, we need to move to mitigation phase," Chow said.

By then social distancing will be implemented, while clinics under the Hospital Authority will serve as first-line clinics to look after patients with flu-like symptoms.

Chow added the government will consider administering vaccines and requiring private enterprises to kickstart their business contingency and continuity plans.

In view of the vulnerability of children, all nurseries, kindergartens and primary schools will be closed for up to 14 days if the first local case is recorded in the city. The arrangements will be reviewed accordingly.

(HK Edition 05/13/2009 page1)