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HEALTH: China Battling to Contain Swine Flu

Antoaneta Bezlova

BEIJING, May 14 2009 (IPS) - China is battling hard to contain the spread of the swine flu after stringent border checks and draconian quarantine measures of Mexican nationals failed to prevent the virus from entering the country.

Both China and Hong Kong confirmed their second cases of the virus, sending ripples of anxiety among a public that still remembers the scary days of the 2003 outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).

“Watching the news about the virus in Mexico I first worried that air-travel would become a big bother,” said Wang Yu who shuttles between Hong Kong and Beijing for his consultancy job, “but now I’m worried about being exposed to the flu and getting sick.”

Judging by the coverage of the virus on state television and print media, the spread of swine flu is nothing less than a top national priority for Chinese leaders.

After the first case was confirmed in China this week, state television aired President Hu Jintao ordering officials at all levels to take all emergency measures to prevent the disease from disseminating among the population. He urged them to “strengthen our leadership and maintain our vigilance… sparing no effort to stem the spread of the epidemic.”

China’s main worry is that its vast territory where many regions have regular bouts of bird flu could emerge as a breeding ground of a new strain of virus that would be much more lethal that the swine flu. The main threat lies with a possible “re-assortment” of two flu strains, Hans Troedsson, head of the Beijing office of the World Health Organisation (WHO), told the media earlier this year.

Bird flu has a high rate of mortality but it is very rarely transmitted between humans. Experts say that although very contagious, the swine flu is relatively benign and causes few deaths. But the mix of the two could result in a new virus that is unpredictable, and perhaps more lethal.

“The reason people are so worried about the ‘second wave’ of the H1N1 flu is because the virus’ global spread this time resembles the 1918 influenza epidemic that remains the most severe in modern history,” says Bi Jinglun, life scientist at Shanghai Fudan University.

In stark contrast to their attempts to cover up the 2003 SARS epidemic, this time around health authorities are at pains to drum up awareness of the health scare, making sure all anti-flu measures are widely broadcast and developments are regularly updated. Calling for national vigilance over the transmission of the virus, they have embarked on a manhunt for all people that had come in contact with the two confirmed carriers of swine flu.

A 30-year-old student surnamed Bao, who recently returned from the U.S., was the first to test positive for the flu. He had travelled from the U.S. via Tokyo to Beijing where he boarded a domestic flight to Chengdu, the provincial capital of the Sichuan province. He was taken to hospital with a fever upon his arrival.

Within 24 hours of his case being confirmed as swine flu, some eighty percent of the air travellers who had been with him on the flights from Tokyo and Beijing had been tracked down and quarantined.

The State Council – China’s cabinet – held an emergency meeting on Monday to discuss further precautionary measures. Beijing announced tightening of anti-flu measures requiring all domestic travellers who have come from or visited flu-affected regions to report their health at airports.

But the second confirmed case presents more difficulties for Beijing because the carrier travelled by train. A native of the eastern province of Shangdong, this 19-year-old student surnamed Lu had just returned from studying in Canada. He arrived in Beijing where he developed a sore throat and headache but nevertheless boarded the train to Jinan in Shangdong.

While on the train he reported his fever to the health authorities and upon arrival was immediately taken into quarantine. But, local media has reported that because of a lack of communication between health experts from the local disease control and prevention bureau and the railway authorities, the majority of passengers who shared a carriage with Lu are unaccounted for.

In the absence of a passengers list, health authorities are now left with the option of having to appeal publicly for those passengers to come forward.

“This is not simply an issue of lack of communication between government departments, it is dereliction of duty,” Xue Lan, dean of the School of Public Policy and Management at Tsinghua University in Beijing was quoted by the China Daily.

Beijing has already warned that it would punish any failures to monitor or report the spread of the disease. “An outbreak must be accurately reported to the higher authorities. Delays, cover-ups or overlooking [items] when reporting is strictly prohibited,” a statement issued after the urgent meeting by the State Council said.

Central authorities have allocated a 5 billion yuan (735 million U.S. dollar) war chest to prevent and control the disease – demanding that local government set aside special funds too to fight the epidemic.

Premier Wen Jiabao has also ordered that mainland health authorities work more closely with agencies in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan on information- sharing, scientific research and preventive measures.

Hong Kong reported its second swine flu patient this week – a local resident who had returned from San Francisco – and called on the U.S. to screen outgoing air passengers to avoid exporting the virus.

“As a responsible global citizen, we are mindful that every country has a duty to reduce as much as possible the probability of travellers spreading infectious pathogens as a result of our interconnectedness,” a letter sent by Hong Kong Secretary for Food and Health York Chow Yat-ngok to the U.S. health authorities said. “This is indeed the very spirit of the WHO International Health Regulations promulgated in 2005, of which your country is a signatory.”