SINGAPORE, 31 May 2009: A 22-year-old Singaporean woman who returned from the United States on 29 May became the fifth person in the city-state to contract the A H1N1 flu.
The republic’s Health Ministry said today the woman, who was in Vermont and New York from 13 to 28 May, arrived here on the All Nippon Airways NH901 flight from New York via Tokyo.
In a statement, the ministry said she passed the thermal scanner at the airport as she did not have fever, and was met by her family and returned home in the family car.
However, she subsequently developed a fever early yesterday and was sent to a local hospital where she was admitted to the centre for disease control for laboratory checks which confirmed her infection last night.
The ministry said her symptoms were mild and she was in stable condition, and the health authorities had initiated contact tracing of her close contacts, including the passengers on the same flight.
The earlier four confirmed A H1N1 flu cases in the city-state were three Singaporeans — a 22-year-old student, a 28-year old man, a 43-year-old woman — and a 28-year old American woman expatriate.
Meanwhile in KUALA LUMPUR, the Malaysian Health Ministry notified today that five more who came in contact with Influenza A(H1N1) victims were placed under ‘home quarantine’ raising the number of such individuals to 12.
Director-General of Health Tan Sri Dr Mohd Ismail Merican said of the 12, two of them had come into contact with a confirmed case in Taiwan on 24 May, three from the confirmed case in Hongkong while seven of them who had come into contact with a case in Singapore on 26 May were already placed under ‘home quarantine’.
All of them are in good health and gave their full cooperation to the Health Ministry, he said in a statement today.
Mohd Ismail added that the Health Ministry’s National Crisis Preparedness and Response Centre (CPRC) had received information from the Immigration Department that 40 foreigners who came in contact with the Singapore confirmed case and entered Malaysia, had left to other countries.
As of 8am today, CPRC received 17 notification cases who were admitted to isolation wards in six hospitals and out of the 17 cases, 14 were negative while three more results are not out yet, said the statement.
To date, 341 patients have been admitted to isolation wards of whom 336 were found negative, two were positive (reported on 15 and 16 May) excluding the three more results which are pending.
Meanwhile, the World Health Organisation (WHO) had informed that as at 9am today, 1,562 new cases were reported throughout the world raising the number of Influenza A (H1N1) confirmed cases through lab tests, to 17,072 cases in 55 countries.
The increase was from 16 countries, namely Australia, Belgium, Canada, China, France, Germany, Greece, Israel, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Slovakia, Switzerland, Taiwan, United Kingdom and United States.
Sixteen deaths were also reported, 12 in Mexico and four in the United States as the number of deaths stand at 115 since the Influenza A(H1N1) outbreak. — Bernama
