Hong Kong - Hong Kong health authorities Sunday confirmed the city's third case of swine flu and launched a search for around 100 other passengers seated near him on a flight from New York. The patient is a 23-year-old student who flew to Hong Kong on a Cathay Pacific flight from New York on Saturday evening and was taken to hospital shortly after arrival.
Under stringent anti-virus measures in Hong Kong, passengers sitting in rows in the vicinity of the patient will be put in quarantine and given medical tests after being traced.
At a briefing Sunday evening, Department of Health officials said the patient flew to the densely-populated city of 7 million on board a Cathay Pacific flight cod-shared with American Airlines.
Department spokesman Gabriel Leung said the patient wore a face mask for the entire flight and was quarantined immediately after temperature scanners picked up his fever at the airport.
In the first case of swine flu detected in Hong Kong, an entire hotel was quarantined for a week from May 1 after it was found the Mexican patient stayed there briefly after arriving in Hong Kong.
Nearly 300 people died and around 1,800 were infected when severe acute respiratory disorder or SAR spread to Hong Kong from China in 2003, leading to the implementation of tough new quarantine laws.
