H.K. screens visitors for swine flu, fever requires mandatory check

HONG KONG, April 27 Kyodo -
Hong Kong will screen arriving foreign visitors for swine flu symptoms and
those with fever and respiratory illnesses will have to undergo mandatory
medical inspections, health officials said Monday.
Doctors who treat patients with possible swine flu infection will be required
to report on the cases, Food and Health Bureau Undersecretary Gabriel Leung
said.
''Everyone entering Hong Kong will have to fill in a health declaration card
and be screened by infrared thermal scanner. If they have a fever and
respiratory illnesses, our medical staff will check their health and travel
history,'' Leung said at a news conference.
The government will give daily updates on suspected cases of human swine flu
infection, said Thomas Tsang, controller at the Centre for Health Protection.
Hong Kong has not reported any confirmed swine flu infection.
So far all three suspected cases -- a 77-year-old woman and her 4-year-old
granddaughter who traveled to Mexico and the United States, and a 27-year-old
woman who traveled to San Francisco earlier this month -- tested negative for
swine flu.
''We expect more cases to turn up,'' Tsang said. ''The government and the
universities are developing a quick test for swine flu and hopefully we can get
that in one to two weeks.''
The government has 20 million doses of flu medicine, a combined stock of
Tamiflu and Relenza that was stockpiled for possible outbreak of bird flu, and
this should be enough to treat 1 million people assuming 15 percent of the
population of 7 million becomes infected, Tsang said.
Leung said scientific data show the two medicines are effective against swine
flu in humans.
''Whether this will hold true for the rest of the epidemic in Mexico and
elsewhere in the Americas remains to be seen, but we are hopeful that these two
drugs would continue to be useful in fighting off this particular virus,''
Leung said.
==Kyodo