China today confirmed a 30-year-old student just back from the U.S. as its first case of swine flu on the mainland and has quarantined dozens of other people who were on a flight with him.
The 30-year-old patient whose surname is Bao tested positive for Type A H1N1 influenza, said an official with China's Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
Bao, who was studying at the University of Missouri in the U.S., is the first case of swine flu confirmed on the Chinese mainland and the country's second in the global outbreak that has killed at least 53 people but has largely spared Asia.
Alert: Police outside a hospital where the 30-year-old swine flu victim is being quarantined after returning from the U.S.
Bao left St. Louis, Missouri, on Thursday on a flight that went to Tokyo via St. Paul, Minnesota.
In Tokyo he took a Northwest Airlines flight to Beijing on Friday that arrived the next day, and then got on a different plane to Chengdu, the capital of southwestern Sichuan province, the Health Ministry said.
On the last flight, Bao started experiencing symptoms that included a fever, sore throat, cough and a runny nose. He went straight to a hospital for treatment upon arrival and was diagnosed as a suspected Type A H1N1 influenza case, the health ministry said.
Bao was tested twice and found to be 'weakly positive' for swine flu, after which he was transferred to the city's specially equipped infectious disease hospital.
Sixty-three of the 150 passengers from the flight from Beijing to Chengdu have been located and placed in quarantine, while Bao's condition is stable.
Some reports say the total number in quarantine had risen to 84, while the official Xinhua News Agency gave the figure of 130.
Authorities have notified passengers on board the flight from Tokyo to Beijing on May 8 and the Beijing to Chengdu flight the following day to report to the disease prevention bureau.
Deng Haihua, a Health Ministry spokesman, told reporters that of the 233 people on board the flight from Tokyo, 106 were foreigners, about a quarter of them Japanese.
All but one of the passengers on the Beijing-Chengdu flight was from mainland China, Deng said.
'The local health authorities are doing their utmost now to try to track down these passengers,' he said.
Bao was transferred to the Chengdu Infectious Disease Hospital and people who came into close contact with him during his medical examination have also been put under medical watch.
The Chinese territory of Hong Kong earlier reported a case of swine flu diagnosed in a 25-year-old Mexican who flew to the city via Shanghai.
According to the World Health Organisation, swine flu has infected 4,379 people worldwide.
Of the deaths, 45 have occurred in Mexico and two in the U.S.
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