Eleven more people tested positive for the influenza A/H1N1 virus in Hong Kong on Saturday, taking the number of confirmed cases in the city to 84, local health authorities said in a bulletin released Saturday evening.
The Health Department of the Hong Kong Administrative Region ( HKSAR) government had said hours earlier in an announcement that it was investigating five new cases.
One of the cases involved a 13-year-old girl studying in St. Paul Convent School, where the first indigenous outbreak involving 11 students was reported days earlier.
The girl "developed diarrhea and cough on June 10" and was admitted to a local hospital on Friday, the Health Department said in the news bulletin.
Another three cases involved a family of three. The father, 39, returned from Thailand to Hong Kong on June 10 and had onset of fever, cough, running nose and chills on the same day. His wife, 40, and daughter, 19, developed fever and cough on Friday.
All the other seven patients, aged between 15 and 36, had records of staying outside Hong Kong recently.
The Department of Health said it was tracing passengers who might have come in contact with the patients on flights and other places and urged them to call the hotline 21251111.
The department also called on members of the public to advise their children, relatives or friends coming to Hong Kong from abroad to defer their trips if they developed symptoms such as fever, cough or sore throat.
Information from the WTO showed it was nearly impossible to stop the spread of the virus in the local community, said Thomas Tsang, controller of the Center for Health Protection of Hong Kong.
He said local authorities had a stockpile enough to cover an outbreak that may involve up to 15 percent of the local population and was planning to add more.
(Xinhua News Agency June 14, 2009)
