Posted: 21 May 2009 1131 hrs
Face masks are advertised at an airport pharmacy in large numbers at the Melbourne Airport.
SYDNEY: A Mexican woman visiting Australia on Thursday became the country's sixth confirmed case of H1N1 flu, as authorities closed a school attended by infected children and warned cases would grow.
The 51-year-old woman is believed to have arrived in Melbourne from Mexico earlier in the week, and presented to a city hospital suffering flu-like symptoms on Wednesday, officials said.
She has been quarantined along with two family members and is reasonably well, Victoria state's Health Minister Daniel Andrews said.
Meanwhile, National Health Minister Nicola Roxon said a Melbourne primary school had been closed until next week and 51 students provided with anti-viral drugs after two brothers were Wednesday diagnosed with H1N1 flu.
The boys, aged nine and 10, and their 12-year-old brother, tested positive for the (A)H1N1 virus after returning from a family holiday to Disneyland, in the United States, on May 12, she said.
"They all seem to have quite mild symptoms, but you would have noticed that the primary school in Victoria has been closed," said Roxon.
"Really the closure is an attempt to contain the spread of this disease. We've seen around the world that schools are places where the disease can spread easily."
Roxon said authorities had decided not to close the older boy's school because he had been there for less than an hour on Monday.
"The situation is developing quite quickly and I suspect that later in the day there will be more cases to add to that number," Roxon said.
A 28-year-old Sydney woman was also confirmed Wednesday to have contracted H1N1 flu on a trip to the United States, but had received anti-viral treatment overseas and appeared to have fully recovered before her return to Australia.
Authorities fear her travelling companion, who had a respiratory illness during their flight to Australia, may also have the virus, and are awaiting test results.
The woman's baby had also been tested and was a suspected case of "particular concern," Roxon said.
Another woman, also 28, was earlier this month diagnosed with a weak strain of H1N1 flu after returning from Los Angeles fully recovered from a flu-like illness. She was Australia's first H1N1 flu case.
The number of worldwide H1N1 flu infections surged past 10,000 Wednesday, as the 41-country epidemic gathered pace in the United States and the first case was recorded in Tokyo, with 80 confirmed deaths, mostly in Mexico.
- AFP/yt
From ChannelNewsAsia.com; see the source article here.
Face masks are advertised at an airport pharmacy in large numbers at the Melbourne Airport.
SYDNEY: A Mexican woman visiting Australia on Thursday became the country's sixth confirmed case of H1N1 flu, as authorities closed a school attended by infected children and warned cases would grow.
The 51-year-old woman is believed to have arrived in Melbourne from Mexico earlier in the week, and presented to a city hospital suffering flu-like symptoms on Wednesday, officials said.
She has been quarantined along with two family members and is reasonably well, Victoria state's Health Minister Daniel Andrews said.
Meanwhile, National Health Minister Nicola Roxon said a Melbourne primary school had been closed until next week and 51 students provided with anti-viral drugs after two brothers were Wednesday diagnosed with H1N1 flu.
The boys, aged nine and 10, and their 12-year-old brother, tested positive for the (A)H1N1 virus after returning from a family holiday to Disneyland, in the United States, on May 12, she said.
"They all seem to have quite mild symptoms, but you would have noticed that the primary school in Victoria has been closed," said Roxon.
"Really the closure is an attempt to contain the spread of this disease. We've seen around the world that schools are places where the disease can spread easily."
Roxon said authorities had decided not to close the older boy's school because he had been there for less than an hour on Monday.
"The situation is developing quite quickly and I suspect that later in the day there will be more cases to add to that number," Roxon said.
A 28-year-old Sydney woman was also confirmed Wednesday to have contracted H1N1 flu on a trip to the United States, but had received anti-viral treatment overseas and appeared to have fully recovered before her return to Australia.
Authorities fear her travelling companion, who had a respiratory illness during their flight to Australia, may also have the virus, and are awaiting test results.
The woman's baby had also been tested and was a suspected case of "particular concern," Roxon said.
Another woman, also 28, was earlier this month diagnosed with a weak strain of H1N1 flu after returning from Los Angeles fully recovered from a flu-like illness. She was Australia's first H1N1 flu case.
The number of worldwide H1N1 flu infections surged past 10,000 Wednesday, as the 41-country epidemic gathered pace in the United States and the first case was recorded in Tokyo, with 80 confirmed deaths, mostly in Mexico.
- AFP/yt
From ChannelNewsAsia.com; see the source article here.
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