Quarantine to end Monday for 38 in E. China

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-05-18 14:55

JINAN -- Health authorities in east China's Shandong Province plan to end the quarantine Monday evening for 38 people who were exposed to the mainland's second confirmed A/H1N1 influenza case, a government spokesman here said.

"No symptoms have been found among the 38 quarantined people, who had close contact with flu patient Lu in the same car of train D41 from Beijing to Jinan on May 11. They will be discharged this evening, as the seven-day quarantine ends," said Zhang Lixiang, spokesman of the provincial health bureau, Monday morning.

He said medical workers had failed to find eight other people who were in the same train car, despite public appeals for them to enter quarantine.

The man, for whom only the surname of Lu was provided, is recovering in the Infectious Disease Hospital in Jinan, Shandong provincial capital. The health bureau said disease control staff would conduct a second lab test of Lu's saliva sample later Monday, which would show whether the flu virus had been thoroughly killed.

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"This test should be done two days after the patient's flu symptoms disappear," the spokesman said.

"We stopped administering Tamiflu to Lu on Sunday, as he showed no more flu symptoms," said the hospital's president, Chen Shijun.

Lu's father made a public apology Sunday on a local television station, saying his family was sorry that Lu's illness had led to the quarantine of so many people and so much government spending.

Lu, 19, had been criticized for going to many public places after developing flu symptoms and exposing people to the disease. Lu studies at a Canadian university and was on a vacation home.

China's third confirmed case found on Saturday also involved a returned Chinese student, an 18-year-old female patient surnamed Liu who has been studying in the United States.

Liu was praised by Beijing's health chief Fang Laiying on Sunday for her "strong social responsibility" after she caught the flu.

Unlike Lu, she avoided to go to public places and kept her taxi receipt after she arrived in Beijing, which made it easier for city's disease control office to trace her contacts after she tested positive for A/H1N1 on Saturday.