Beijing reports 4 confirmed A/H1N1 cases

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In the capital, Beijing, Health authorities have confirmed that, so far, four A/H1N1 cases throughout th city. But they are assuring the public that sound preventive measures are already in place and there is no need to panic.

The Beijing municipal health bureau says the fourth confirmed case in Beijing is a 65-year-old Chinese-American, surnamed Li. He flew from New York to Beijing by flight CA 982 on Thursday. His body temperature was 37.5 degrees Celsius when he entered the airport. And he was immediately sent to Ditan Hospital. On Friday, medical experts diagnosed him to have infected with A/H1N1 flu.

So far 14 passengers sitting within the radius of 3 rows from Li on the same flight have been located. They have been put in quarantine.

Beijing reported its third confirmed case on Friday night. The patient was a 69-year-old man surnamed Zhang. Zhang is a Chinese national who has lived in Canada for more than two years. He arrived in Beijing together with his wife on May 16th on flight AC-031 from Toronto. Doctors have quarantined his wife, son, daughter-in-law and granddaughter.

Although the number of confirmed A/H1N1 cases has risen to 4, the Beijing Municipal Disease Control Center says it's not considering raising the epidemic alert level, at least for now.

Deng Ying, Director of Beijing Municipal disease control center, said, "The 4 confirmed cases originated in different countries and they are not inter-connected with each other. We have begun strict tests on over 10,000 passengers entering Beijing Capital International Airport each day. And we have mobilized all community health centers across the city to conduct health check on visitors or students just returning from overseas. The information is being reported to us on a daily basis. "

Authorities say the 4 cases are all imported cases, and they are not ruling out the possibility of local infectious cases. But they are also assuring the pubic that the situation is under control, and that A/H1N1 flu, is curable.