Singapore has first H1N1 flu case
SINGAPORE (Reuters) - The Singapore government on Wednesday confirmed the city-state's first H1N1 flu case, a 22-year-old Singaporean woman who is being quarantined in hospital.
The government has been warning Singaporeans for weeks to prepare for an inevitable H1N1 outbreak in the city-state, a regional financial and trading center and the world's busiest port.
The woman arrived from New York early on Tuesday on a Singapore Airlines flight, and was not picked up by thermal scanners at the airport as she did not have a fever then, the government said in a statement. She was in a stable condition.
The government said it planned to impose home quarantine on around 60 people, mostly Singaporean passengers on the same flight who were sitting near the flu patient, and it urged them to report to the authorities for anti-viral medication.
"This won't be the last case in Singapore unless we could stop people from traveling," Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan told reporters.
The government was continuing with screening at border checkpoints and asked people to stay at home if suffering flu symptoms. It also advised caution over travel to affected areas.
Singapore financial markets shrugged off the news. Singapore's central bank said in April that the global outbreak of flu clouded the outlook for the economy.
(Reporting by Nopporn Wong-Anan; Writing by Neil Chatterjee; Editing by Alex Richardson)
