Swine flu hits China as global cases rise

CHENGDU – China yesterday confirmed its first case of swine flu on the mainland, underlining the outbreak’s global spread, as the United States reported hundreds more cases and warned of further deaths.

Worldwide, the death toll passed 50 after Costa Rica reported its first fatality from the virus, officially known as A(H1N1) influenza, and the United States confirmed a third death.
Meanwhile in Mexico, where the virus was first reported and has killed 48 people, primary schools were reopening after a massive shutdown to contain the outbreak. However six of the country’s 32 states were keeping schools closed due to further flu fears.
Fears that infections would gather pace were heightened when China said it had detected its first mainland case in a man who had recently travelled back from the United States.
The 30-year-old was hospitalised with a fever after arriving in the Sichuan provincial capital Chengdu, in southwestern China, from the United States via Tokyo on Saturday afternoon, the health ministry said.
‘This is our country’s first case of A(H1N1),’ its spokesman Mao Qunan said in a statement on its website.
State television said the man, surnamed Bao, was in a stable condition. He flew from Tokyo to Beijing on a Northwest Airlines flight before connecting on a domestic flight to Chengdu, the ministry said.
The virus was first reported in Mexico in April, but has spread to more than 30 nations since and the global number of infected cases is at least 4 380. In response to the outbreak, Beijing has barred direct flights from Mexico and banned imports of Mexican pork.
– Nampa-AFP