Scramble to contain first locally transmitted H1N1 case

NST: PUTRAJAYA: As the country’s first locally transmitted influenza A (H1N1) case was announced yesterday, health authorities were scrambling to contain the disease.
The victim was identified as a 17-year-old girl from Petaling Jaya and to date, 20 of her immediate family members and friends have been quarantined.
The authorities, however, are concerned that the 20 in quarantine could have infected others whom health officials are unaware of at the moment.
“If any of the 20 is tested positive, we will then have to track down those whom this person had come in contact with.
“Tracking them down and breaking the chain of infection is our priority now,” said a health official.
Initial investigations revealed that the girl got the disease from her friend, who had tested positive earlier.
The friend, a medical student, was believed to have contracted the disease while on holiday in Melbourne, Australia recently. He later tested positive here and was confirmed as Malaysia’s 12th case.
Health authorities interviewed him and he gave them a list of the people he had come in contact with but for reasons not known, the girl’s name was left out.
On June 15, however, the girl sought treatment at University Malaya Medical Centre after developing flu and fever.
She was referred to the Sungai Buloh Hospital the same day and yesterday was confirmed as the first locally transmitted case.
When asked if the government would enforce the “social distancing” measure in Petaling Jaya, which has a population of over half-a-million people, he said for now the ministry would monitor the 20 people for signs of the virus.
“We are first looking at the severity of this local transmission before resorting to any social distancing,” he said.
The social distancing measure, which is warranted under the National Influenza Pandemic Preparedness Plan (NIPPP) bans all public gatherings and forces schools as well as other learning institutions to close.
Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Ismail Merican on Friday in warning those who had contact with confirmed cases or show symptoms of the flu to identify themselves, had said that one local transmission of the virus was enough to impose the measure in the whole district.
Dr Ismail in a statement announcing Malaysia’s first local transmission, said that it was crucial that confirmed patients provided complete information including that of their contacts, so that steps could be taken to prevent any local transmission.
Action, he said could be taken against those who failed to do so under Disease Prevention and Control Act 1988 (ACT 342).
Malaysia is now officially one of the 23 countries from 76 nations with confirmed cases, which has local transmission of the virus.