Hong Kong hospital discharges Mexican flu patient
HONG KONG (Reuters) - A Mexican traveler confirmed as Hong Kong's first and only case of the new flu strain has been discharged from hospital, a spokeswoman said on Saturday.
The unidentified man, who unwittingly caused the confinement of almost 300 guests and staff at a Hong Kong hotel where he had stayed, had been in hospital for a week suffering from the H1N1 flu strain.
"Doctors confirmed he's fit ... he was stable and OK to leave the hospital," said Tammy Mak, a spokeswoman for Hong Kong's Princess Margaret Hospital.
"He wanted some privacy," said Mak, adding Mexican consulate had met him on his release. The 25-year-old man had arrived in Hong Kong via Shanghai.
The new H1N1 flu has killed its first patient in Canada, making it the third country after Mexico and the United States to report a death from the virus that has sickened more than 3,000 people in 27 countries.
On Friday, Hong Kong authorities freed almost 300 people held in quarantine at a city hotel for the past week in an attempt to contain the flu.
Although some have ridiculed Hong Kong's decision to quarantine those people as extreme, many public health experts backed the move, saying drastic measures were needed to stop the spread of the disease.
Health Minister York Chow told a radio program on Saturday that Hong Kong faced "a prolonged battle" against the virus and that authorities would fine-tune the city's containment policies.
Mainland China on Thursday lifted its seven-day quarantine for all 128 passengers who arrived in Shanghai on the same flight as the infected Mexican.
(Reporting by James Pomfret and Nerilyn Tenorio; Editing by Paul Tait)
