Malta probes itinerary of Japanese patient

The health authorities plan to track down the travel path of a Japanese boy who contracted swine flu in Germany and is believed to have recently holidayed in Malta with his family.

Community Care Parliamentary Secretary Mario Galea said there were no cases of the H1N1 flu in Malta or Gozo.

As the World Health Organisation yesterday declared the flu had reached pandemic proportions, the German health authorities confirmed 30 cases of the H1N1 flu at a school in the western city of Dusseldorf that hosts a large Japanese community.

Reuters reported that one of the Japanese children was confirmed with H1N1 last week and had "recently been to Malta".

The German news website WZ Newsline said the family, a father and his two sons aged three and six, had travelled to Gozo on May 25.

The Maltese authorities do not know when the family was in Malta or where they stayed.

Mr Galea said the information the German authorities had was just preliminary and they still had to look into the child's itinerary.

Mr Galea said the Maltese health authorities had contacted their German counterparts and requested information about the Japanese family.

"We are asking how long they had been on the island, when they were here, their travel path and mode of travel and who they had come in contact with," he said.

Until last night the authorities were still waiting for this information from the team of German experts investigating the outbreak.

Mr Galea, who is heading the government team tasked with ensuring all safeguards against the virus are in place, reiterated that the health authorities investigated even the slightest suspicion of the flu, but nothing had turned up.

They monitored the situation in Malta on a daily basis and were in constant contact with WHO and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.

"We are very vigilant. So far we have had no cases of the H1N1," he insisted.

Mr Galea added that the promised information leaflets about swine influenza started being distributed to households yesterday in a bid to allay fears as the world went on maximum alert to minimise the impact of the virus. Information posters will also be displayed in schools and public places.

Germany had 86 confirmed cases of H1N1 prior to the school infections, according to the Robert Koch Institute, the country's federal agency for infectious diseases.

The case at the Dusseldorf school was the most concentrated outbreak of the virus so far in Europe's largest economy.

The children are now in quarantine and their parents and people who have been in contact with them will be tested. The school has been closed until the end of next week, Reuters reported.

The World Health Organisation yesterday declared the virus as an influenza pandemic and called on governments to prepare for a long-term battle against an unstoppable flu virus.

The United Nations agency raised its pandemic flu alert to phase 6 on a six-point scale, indicating the first influenza pandemic since 1968 is under way.

"With today's announcement, WHO moves from an emergency to a longer-term response. Based on past experience, this pandemic will be with us for some months, if not years, to come," WHO Director-General Margaret Chan said in a letter to staff.

Countries from Australia to Chile and the United States are also reporting that the new virus, commonly known as swine flu, is "crowding out" seasonal flu, becoming the predominant influenza strain.

For now the virus was "pretty stable", but Dr Chan warned that it could still mutate into a more deadly form, taking on characteristics of the separate H5N1 bird flu virus circulating widely in poultry.

Acting on the recommendation of flu experts, the WHO reiterated its advice to its 193 member countries not to close borders or impose travel restrictions to halt the movement of people, goods and services, a call echoed by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

The move to phase 6 reflects the fact that the disease, widely known as swine flu, was spreading geographically, but does not indicate how virulent it is.

Widespread transmission of the virus in Victoria, Australia, signalling that it is entrenched in another region besides North America, was one of the key triggers for moving to phase 6.

A unanimous experts' decision was based on an overall assessment in the eight most heavily hit countries - Australia, Britain, Canada, Chile, Japan, Mexico, Spain and the United States - that the virus is spreading in a sustained way in communities, according to Dr Chan.

Fact box

Swine flu originated in Mexico two months ago and has since affected 74 countries, which together reported about 28,000 cases including 141 deaths.

Countries such as Australia, Britain and Japan, which are reporting growing numbers of infections, are being watched carefully by the WHO as they are outside the first region where the virus was first discovered, according to AFP news agency.

The majority of deaths have been in Mexico where 108 are known to have succumbed to the virus. More than 6,133 have been infected there.

Hong Kong authorities yesterday ordered all primary schools in the city to be closed for two weeks after the first cluster of local swine flu cases was found in the Chinese territory.

In Australia, four swine flu victims were in intensive care.

The number of swine flu cases in the UK has risen to 797, BBC reported.

The WHO had raised its alert level to five at the end of April, indicating that a pandemic was imminent. Yesterday, it officially declared the situation a flu pandemic - the first in 40 years.

The last pandemic came after an outbreak of the H3N2 viral strain from 1968 to 1969, which originated in Hong Kong, and went on to kill up to two million people.

The symptoms of the swine flu are similar to common flu. It has shown to be responsive to the two antiviral drugs Tamiflu and Relenza.

The Maltese government has stocks of both drugs.