China's Ministry of Health has announced that an outbreak of illness that affected over 100 students in Shaanxi province earlier this month was unrelated the outbreak of swine flu in Mexico.
In a press release published on it's website on April 29, the Ministry said that an outbreak of common flu in Xi'an, Shaanxi province from April 10 to 16 that affected over 100 students, has been contained, with all students having recovered and classes there resumed.
The announcement came after journalists participating in a World Health Organization (WHO) press conference in Beijing yesterday asked the international body's China representative, Hans Troedsson, whether or not there was a connection between the Shaanxi outbreak and the Mexican swine flu outbreak. He said that at the time he did not know of any confirmed cases of the swine flu in Asia.
He said that China's 1.3 billion people would pose a challenge to controlling the disease, adding that China's migrant populations who are neither registered nor have health care would further complicate the issue.
But Troedsson, who had met with China's health minister Chen Zhu earlier that morning, also said that the country was well prepared to deal with an outbreak.
He said China and the world had learned from the previous SARS and bird flu experiences, and that China was well prepared to face the swine flu.
Regarding the Chinese government's openness compared to during the SARS outbreak, Troedsson said that the WHO and the Chinese government would be working closely, but that "openness should be more for the public."
He added that China had activated preventive measures, strengthened surveillance, and enhanced people's awareness of the illness.
China's Premier Wen Jiabao chaired a State Council meeting on April 28 to enhance swine flu prevention and control. According to the a press release published on a government website, as of Tuesday morning, no cases of the illness had been reported in China, and no similar virus had been found in pigs in China.
Nonetheless, the press release acknowledged the possibility of the illness spreading to China, and it enumerated eight preventive measures established during the State Council meeting:
-- Follow-up the latest developments of the disease around the world, and step up cooperation with foreign countries as well as Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao;
-- A joint prevention and control mechanism should be established to draw up emergency plans and monitor the disease prevention process;
-- Enhance the examination and disinfection of people and vehicles coming from countries where the disease has been discovered;
-- The government should promptly issue travel notices for citizens going abroad;
-- Enhance the monitoring of unknown pneumonia and influenza cases, set up an rapid-reporting system, and treat people promptly;
-- Tighten supervisions of farms, slaughterhouses and agricultural and sideline products markets, and of pork-related products;
-- Anti-disease medicine and clinical treatment apparatus should be readied, and research on the disease-infection model, and vaccine and clinical treatment methods should be enhanced;
-- The government should report to the public the latest news promptly, and better publicize disease facts.
Hong Kong announced four cases of suspected swine flu on April 28. Nearly 2,000 people in Mexico have been hospitalized with flu-like symptoms, and over 150 deaths have been attributed to the virus there thus far. Confirmed cases have been found in the US, Canada, UK, Spain, Israel, and New Zealand.
The WHO has raised the level of the influenza pandemic alert to phase four, which meant the United Nations agency has determined that the virus is capable of significant human-to-human transmission. It said this was a major step towards classification as a pandemic, but also said it did not mean that this was inevitable.
