Type-A influenza cases in South Korea pass 1,000

SEOUL, July 22 (Yonhap) -- The number of confirmed type-A influenza cases in South Korea has reached 1,003, with infections spreading among local communities, health authorities said Wednesday.

The Ministry for Health, Welfare and Family Affairs said it has confirmed 68 new
cases of the influenza, including 39 cases in a high school in southern Seoul and
three flight attendants employed by a local airline.
Airplane passengers recently served by the flight attendants were being tested
for possible infection, it said.
The new cases also include eight members of a South Korean foil team that
returned from a competition in Singapore and two others who had participated in a
missionary program in the Philippines.
South Korea has been relatively insulated from the global pandemic, which has
claimed hundreds of lives abroad since the disease was first identified in April.
No deaths have been reported here in connection with the disease.
But fears are growing over the increasing number of local cases involving
community transmission, in which people develop symptoms without travel to
affected countries or contact with other patients.
Ten of the newly confirmed cases neither traveled overseas nor had contact with
other flu patients.
As of Wednesday, 143 people remain in isolation for treatment at state-designated
hospitals, with 215 more staying in their homes, the ministry said. The other
confirmed and suspected patients -- more than half of whom are inbound travelers
-- were cured after being treated with antibiotics.
An Asiana Airlines flight bound for Manila was briefly delayed Tuesday night
after one of the passengers was suspected of carrying the H1N1 virus. The
unidentified woman, who teaches at an elementary school in Busan where cases were
confirmed, debarked from the plane after health authorities notified the airline
shortly before its departure.
On Tuesday, the ministry upgraded its disease alert level by one notch to the
second-highest, calling for cities and provinces to run emergency and disease
control systems around the clock.
The ministry said it will shift from its current "containment and isolation"
strategy in curbing the spread of the disease toward a "damage-minimizing" policy
aimed at preventing deaths and curing patients with serious symptoms.
The government earlier said it aims to secure enough vaccine to inoculate around
27 percent of the nation's population against the flu virus. The vaccines will be
available beginning in November, ahead of the winter flu season, it added.
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