If any cases were confirmed in Hong Kong, he said, the patient would be isolated for treatment while authorities traced anyone who had been in contact with them - the same procedure used during the Sars and bird flu epidemics. -- PHOTO: ASSOCIATED PRESS
HONG KONG - A WOMAN has been admitted to a Hong Kong hospital on suspicion of having contracted swine flu while two other people were declared free of the virus, a health official said on Monday.
The woman, who had just returned from San Francisco, was undergoing tests after showing some flu-like symptoms, Thomas Tsang, controller of the Centre of Health Protection, told reporters.
Taiwan man cleared
TAIPEI - HEALTH authorities in Taiwan said on Monday that a man hospitalised with fever after returning from Mexico had not contracted swine flu.
'The man who returned from Mexico three days ago showing the symptoms of fever and sneezing rang the Centres for Disease Control for help today,' CDC deputy director-general Shih Wen-yi told reporters.
'A 27-year-old woman who returned from San Francisco is undergoing tests,' said Mr Tsang. 'But remember there has been no reported case of swine flu in San Francisco so far.'
He added that a 77-year-old woman who had just returned from a trip to Mexico and the United States had also been examined by doctors, along with her granddaughter, who had not travelled outside Hong Kong.
Both showed some flu symptoms but were released after being given the all-clear, Mr Tsang said.
Hong Kong authorities have announced a series of tough measures to combat the threat of swine flu, including detaining anyone showing symptoms of the virus after arriving from an infected area.
Health officials in the city, which was at the forefront of the Sars epidemic in 2003 and already on alert for bird flu, have advised against all non-essential travel to worst-hit Mexico, where 20 deaths have been confirmed.
Mr Tsang said on Sunday that protection measures including the use of temperature screening machines at airports and other entry points had been stepped up.
'If any passenger fails the temperature test... he will be interrupted and we will obtain the history whether in the past seven days he has been to any of these places affected by swine flu,' he told reporters.
'If that history is positive, we will take that patient to the hospital and let him stay there and have a test and until the test result is negative, we won't allow him to get out of the hospital.'
Messages were being broadcast on inbound flights, especially those arriving from affected areas such as Mexico and the United States, advising passengers to report symptoms such as sudden fever.
If any cases were confirmed in Hong Kong, he said, the patient would be isolated for treatment while authorities traced anyone who had been in contact with them - the same procedure used during the Sars and bird flu epidemics. -- AFP
