Passengers on board with flu patient sought

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-05-11 22:28

BEIJING -- Beijing health authorities are seeking 143 passengers who were on a Tokyo-Beijing flight with a Chinese man who has become the mainland's first confirmed case of A(H1N1) flu, a government spokesman said here Monday.

The confirmed carrier, who had been a student in the United States, took Northwest Airlines flight NW029 to Beijing at 1:30 a.m. May 9, after making a transfer in Tokyo from St. Louis, Missouri, and St. Paul, Minnesota, both in the United States.

He then flew from Beijing to Chengdu on Sichuan Airlines flight 3U8882 the same day, the Ministry of Health said Sunday.

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Sun Hao, spokesman for Beijing's emergency response liaison office, a coordination organization in the disease control of the city, said the health department had contacted about 120 of the 143 passengers from NW029. None had shown fever symptoms.

He said that among the passengers, there were foreign nationals who had checked into hotels in Beijing. The health department was "persuading them to take quarantine measures", the attitude was totally different for passengers of Chinese citizenship who were forced to receive week-long observations in designated medical establishments.

He didn't specify the number of people or what hotels they were in, although the Beijing News quoted a source as saying there were about 70 foreigners on board the flight.

Sun said that the health department was trying to quarantine all the passengers at the Guomenlu Hotel near the airport, which was used to quarantine people in an earlier flu case involving a Mexican national who ended up in Hong Kong.

The passengers were found to be residents in 14 districts and neighboring counties in Beijing.

The case, the first in the mainland so far, involved a 30-year-old man surnamed Bao.

According to the Sichuan Health Department, which reported the case to the Health Ministry Sunday afternoon, Bao was in the Sichuan People's Hospital with a fever and was "initially diagnosed as a suspected A(H1N1) influenza case" based on his symptoms and laboratory tests. And the Ministry of Health said Monday morning he tested positive for A(H1N1) influenza. He is now at the Chengdu Infectious Disease Hospital.

The Sichuan Health Department also said Monday morning that more than 130 of the 150 passengers aboard the flight from Beijing to Chengdu with Bao had been put in quarantine.

With assistance from police, Sichuan Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention is looking for the remaining 20 passengers who moved on after arriving on flight 3U8882 in Chengdu Saturday afternoon, said the Sichuan Provincial Health Department.

Guangdong Province in south China has also joined the manhunt.

Guangdong Provincial Health Bureau published a bilingual announcement in English and Chinese at midday Monday asking passengers who traveled in the above mentioned two flights, and who had plans to visit Guangdong, to report to local disease control centers to receive medical observation.

Guangdong Provincial Health Bureau was informed by the Health Ministry early Monday that seven passengers had plans to travel to Guangdong.

The whereabouts of four of those seven passengers is now known: Two of them were in Beijing, and one each in Nanning, capital of south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, and Chengdu, capital of Sichuan.

The authorities were still seeking the remaining three who were said to be nationals of the United States, said Guangdong Provincial Health Bureau.