Terjadi peningkatan kasus yang gejalanya mirip flu di Hongkong

13-March-2008
HK schools close amid flu fears

Di Hongkong telah terjadi peningkatan kasus yang gejalanya mirip flu, 3 anak usia sekolah telah meninggal dan 200 kasus suspek yang telah dilaporkan. info lengkap dapat dibaca di berita ini All kindergartens and junior schools in Hong Kong have closed early for their Easter holiday, after a flu-like illness killed three children.

Sumber : www.bbc.co.uk

All kindergartens and junior schools in Hong Kong have closed early for their Easter holiday, after a flu-like illness killed three children.

The Education Bureau described the move as a "precautionary measure".

More than 30 students from one school have showed flu-like symptoms and three children have died from apparently similar illnesses in recent weeks.

Experts are investigating a link to either bird flu or Sars, a respiratory disease that hit Hong Kong in 2003.

The kindergartens and junior schools will be closed for two weeks, affecting more than half a million children.

Almost 200 cases of suspected flu have been reported so far.

Hong Kong's health chief, York Chow, said the decision to close the schools was made as the high rate of flu-like infections was expected to continue for weeks.

"We hope such precautionary measures will help reduce the cross-infection of the flu virus in schools and the community," the official Xinhua news agency quoted him as saying.

Expert team

Over the weekend seven-year-old Law Ho-ming was admitted to hospital in a semi-conscious state, suffering from fever and flu.

He died on Tuesday from encephalitis - swelling of the brain.

Five of his fellow students from the Ho Yat Tung Primary School remain in hospital, and more than 30 others are displaying flu-like symptoms.

Concerns have also been raised about two other recent child deaths.

A two-year-old boy died in February and a three-year-old girl died on 1 March from what appeared to be a variant of bird flu.

The school closure is the first caused by illness since 2003, when almost 300 people died from Sars.

Official records show that people in 25 other schools, a hospital ward and a disabled residential home are suffering from outbreaks of flu.

The government has set up an expert team led by a University of Hong Kong microbiologist to identify the illnesses in question and assess the risk.

Experts say there is no reason yet to fear a major flu outbreak, but admit they do not yet know what caused the deaths.

info berita

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7291169.stm

info video dari www.cnn.com linknya http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/health/2008/03/12/health.minute.kidney.cnn