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China’s Official H1N1 Death Count Suspect
Currently, China has tallied 53 deaths due to the H1N1 flu. However, some medical experts have questioned that number. Zhong Nanshan, prominent Guangdong-based doctor known for his candor during the SARS crisis, suggests that the death toll may be far higher due to cover-ups in reporting. From China Daily:
Zhong Nanshan, a Guangzhou-based doctor famous for his candor in exposing a cover-up of the SARS epidemic in 2003, took concerns a step further, suggesting some local governments had deliberately concealed suspected cases.
“I just don’t believe that there have been 53 H1N1 deaths nationwide,” Zhong told the Southern Metropolis Daily. He said the number could be far higher.
The MOH reported that there had been 69,160 H1N1 cases on the mainland as of Monday.
In the article, Zhong said some parts of the country – he would not say which parts – were not testing severe pneumonia deaths to see if they were, in fact, H1N1 deaths.
From Reuters:
“It’s irresponsible to treat these cases as ordinary pneumonia deaths,” Zhong said of untested deaths, according to the paper.
Zhong said his home Guangdong province was acting responsibly, but the report did not say which areas he had doubts about.
Cover-ups by local governments in 2003 during the SARS epidemic led to the sackings of several officials. More than 300 people died in that outbreak.
The Health Ministry did not have immediate comments on Zhong’s remarks.
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- November 19, 2009 10:32 PM
1.5M Per Day Getting Swine Flu Vaccine in China
According to Chen Zhu, China’s health minister, 1.5 million Chinese are getting vaccinated against the H1N1 flu each day. From Will Weissert for Associated Press:
China’s health minister said Wednesday his country is vaccinating 1.5 million people a day against swine flu, part of a mammoth effort to reach nearly 7 percent of inhabitants of the world’s most populous country by year’s end.
Chen Zhu told The Associated Press that more than 50 million Chinese have been immunized so far.
He also defended China’s aggressive quarantine of foreigners with flulike symptoms as well as health detentions of its own citizens.
“With initial efforts of containment, actually we not only reduced the impact of the first wave to China, but we also won time for us to prepare the vaccine” now being given to China’s people, Chen said in an interview during the Havana meeting of the Global Forum for Health Research.
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- November 18, 2009 11:24 PM
China’s Tough Flu Measures Appear to Be Effective
China has gotten the H1N1 epidemic under control, thanks to the use of aggressive measures that have been the topic of much controversy. The New York Times reports:
Quarantines and medical detentions are among the aggressive measures that Chinese officials have taken to slow the transmission of H1N1, which quickly spread worldwide after being diagnosed first in North America.
To protests from around the world, China isolated entire planeloads of people entering the country if anyone on the plane exhibited flulike symptoms. Local authorities canceled school classes at the slightest hint of the disease and ordered students and teachers to stay home. China was virtually alone in taking such harsh measures, which continued throughout most of the summer.
Now, Chinese and foreign health officials say that some of those contested measures — more easily adopted by an authoritarian state — may have helped slow the spread of the disease in the world’s most populous country. China has not had to cope with a crush of cases, and it began administering a vaccine for swine flu in early September, the first country to do so.
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- November 11, 2009 9:09 PM
China Reports First Death From H1N1 Flu
From Reuters:
China on Tuesday reported its first death from the H1N1 flu strain after weeks on alert against the disease.
The victim, who died on Sunday, was an 18-year-old woman from the Tibetan autonomous region, who had been admitted to hospital the previous day complaining of a sore throat, cough and aches, the official Xinhua agency said.
The Health Ministry confirmed the death, but declined to comment further.
The government has reported the death to the World Health Organisation and is now rushing 200,000 doses of vaccine to remote areas, state media said.
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- October 6, 2009 8:13 AM
Millions At Risk From High Blood Pressure In China: Study
From AFP:
Hypertension plays a part in 2.3 million cardiovascular deaths in China each year, doctors reported on Tuesday, pointing a finger at high levels of salt in the Chinese diet.
Health specialists led by Jiang He, a professor at the Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine in New Orleans, made the estimate from a nationally representative sample of 170,000 Chinese aged 40 and over.
Extrapolating across the country, 2.3 million cardiovascular deaths in 2005 were related to raised blood pressure, they said.
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- October 5, 2009 5:20 PM
Ling Woo Liu: A Family Journey
Time Magazine’s Ling Woo Liu writes a personal essay about her great-grandfather, Dr. Wu Lien-teh, who helped suppress an epidemic of pneumonic plague in China and revolutionized the treatment of pandemics, yet has been forgotten by Chinese history until recently:
After flying to Beijing from my current home in Hong Kong, I headed to Harbin to attend the opening of the Wu Lien-teh Memorial Hospital and the 60th anniversary of another hospital affiliated with Harbin Medical University, one of several medical institutions founded by Wu. Some 700 government officials as well as doctors from China and abroad attended the elaborate, televised event. Walking around the Wu Lien-teh hospital and associated museum, and listening to trained docents shed light on my own family history, I was deeply moved. But I also wondered: Why, after so long, is China honoring my great-grandfather? Read “China’s Medical Boom.”
The answer, on reflection, lies as much with how China has changed since the People’s Republic was founded 60 years ago as with Wu’s vital work. Over the decades China has lurched from serial revolutions to social experiments to, now, the wildly successful pursuit of wealth. In the process, hundreds of millions of lives have been both upended and uplifted. My great-grandfather and his family were buffeted by some of those forces too (though with nowhere near the terrible consequences experienced by countless other Chinese). While his achievements have long been recognized by epidemiologists worldwide, they were largely forgotten in China after the communists took over. In the aftermath of “liberation,” foreign links and laurels, once celebrated, became perilous liabilities. Wu’s relatives, including my father, fled in 1949, in part because they feared that their overseas ties might hurt them in the new China.
Yet as the nation continually transforms itself, so does its idea of what is acceptable and what, indeed, constitutes a hero.
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- September 12, 2009 9:25 PM
Swine Flu Spread in China ‘Grim’
China is the first country to offer a swine flu (H1N1) vaccine so far, and the BBC reports that those attending the 60th National Day celebrations are first on the list to be immunized:
There are at least 200,000 official participants, plus thousands of security police.
According to the BBC’s China analyst, Shirong Chen, they have been pushed to the front of the queue not just because it is a huge public event that carries national pride, but because all the top leaders and dignitaries will be in Beijing.
The authorities cannot afford the political risk of any infection there, our correspondent says.
So there will not be much vaccine left for others on the priority list for now.
Reuters also has an update on the spread of swine flu in China:
China has reported 5,592 cases of H1N1 flu, from which 3,852 people have recovered. No-one has died in China, although a patient in Shanghai is in a coma, with multiple organ failure.
“There are some recent developments in H1N1 in China that mean we are facing a grim situation,” said Chen Zhu, one of only two ministers in China who do not belong to the Communist Party.
He listed a rapid surge in domestic cases, after an initial phase when most cases in China were of foreigners who arrived with the disease. Since the beginning of September, there has also been a spike in the number of clusters of outbreaks, which now number 128.
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- September 8, 2009 12:27 PM
China Town Sealed Off After Pneumonic Plague Kills 3 (Updated)
From AFP:
A town in a Tibetan area in northwest China has been sealed off after one of its residents died from pneumonic plague, the local government said on Sunday.
Ziketan town in Qinghai province was put under collective quarantine Saturday when laboratory tests showed it had been struck by the highly virulent disease, the Qinghai health bureau said in a statement.
A 32-year-old herdsman had died from the plague, while 11 others had been diagnosed with it, according to the statement.
Ziketan, which is located in the Hainan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, had enough supplies to get by on its own for the time being, it added, giving no indication of when the quarantine would be lifted.
Update: A second man has reportedly died in the town. See this BBC report.
Update 2 (August 3, 2009): Bloomberg reports on a third death:
Pneumonic plague claimed the life of a third man in northwestern China as global health officials said the disease was unlikely to cause mass fatalities.
A 64-year-old man died in the remote town of Ziketan in Qinghai province, the official Xinhua News Agency reported late yesterday, citing local health authorities. The town has been sealed off, and nine people are in quarantine with symptoms, the news service said.
While plague is one of the most deadly infectious diseases, early diagnosis and treatment with generic antibiotics such as streptomycin and tetracycline cuts patients’ mortality rate to less than 15 percent, the World Health Organization said on its Web site. The disease can kill 60 percent of its victims if left unchecked, the Geneva-based United Nations agency said. The agency is monitoring the town, it said.
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- August 3, 2009 8:27 PM
A Robust Response
From the Beijing Review, via alibaba.com:
With new A/H1N1 flu cases spreading around the world every day, criticism over China’s alleged overreaction to this new virus may finally be dying out. But leaders acknowledged the country is not in the clear yet. The arduous challenges of developing vaccines and preventing any large-scale outbreaks still lay ahead.
World Health Organization (WHO) Director General Margaret Chan announced at a briefing on June 11 that the WHO is raising the A/H1N1 pandemic alert level to six, the agency’s highest alert level, which means the world is in the early days of the first influenza pandemic of the 21st century.
Chan suggested that governments adjust their public health response to the pandemic to the development of the outbreak in their country. But she also emphasized that pandemic means geographical spread, not severity.”We also want to make clear that the higher level of the pandemic does not necessarily mean we are going to see a more dangerous virus or see many more people falling severely ill or dying,” she said.
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- June 19, 2009 4:54 PM
In China, Mental Disease Common And Untreated: Study
From AFP:
Far more people in China suffer from mental disease than previously suspected, with most going untreated, according to a major study unveiled Friday.
The largest health survey of its kind ever conducted in China estimates that 173 million adults have some type of mental disorder, and that 158 million of them — 91 percent — have never received professional help.
In many middle-income countries, including China, neuropsychiatric conditions are the leading cause of ill health in both men and women, easily outstripping infectious and cardiovascular disease, according to the study.
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- June 12, 2009 9:30 PM
China Braces for H1N1 Pandemic Fallout
The World Health Organization has categorized the H1N1 flu outbreak as a pandemic. Amidst the health concerns and quarantine problems is another alert — the economy. Tourism, retail, entertainment, and trade are expected to be among those affected the most. From Shan Juan, Zhang Ran, Xin Dingding and Jiang Wei from China Daily:
Gao Yaosong, director of the Shanghai Research Institute of International Economy and Trade, agreed the pandemic alert will deal a big blow to exports and imports, turning matters from bad to worse.
A series of restrictions will be imposed on the movement of both people and goods, making it difficult for trade delegates to travel overseas freely, he said.
“The news is the last thing we want to hear,” said Zhang Qingzhu, marketing manager of China Comfortable Travel Services in Beijing.
“The government might adopt stricter policies on travel, but what is worse is that people will have greater fear about travel. It will be a devastating blow for tour operators,” she said.
Meanwhile, frustrations are mounting over the strict and often arbitrary quarantine measures. James Fallows has posted the letter of a quarantined Chinese with U.S. citizenship, in an entry titled “Journal of the Quarantine Year.” Incidentally, the writer was on the same flight as New Orleans mayor Jim Nagin. Nagin was also quarantined, and just released yesterday:
I am now sitting by myself in a room, in a building full of other “suspected” H1N1 patient. I can use the internet, the phone and watch TV but there is a lock on the front door and I’m not allowed to leave my room or talk to the other “guests”. Three women dressed in full gear deliver food to me three times a day (7:30, noon and 5:30 pm) and I get my temperature taken too. They confiscated my passport but there are plenty of posters and pamphlets everywhere describing precautions and horror that is H1N1.
The funniest part about all of this? I don’t have H1N1. Although the people here refuse to answer most of my questions, I was given an English document from the government describing proper procedure for the quarantine. I quote, from the section “When will you be free to leave”
“The time to lift the medical observation depends on the diagnosis of the passenger with fever symptoms. If the diagnosis rules out the possibility of A H1N1 infection, you will be free to leave immediately…However, if the test report shows anything suspicious or needs another diagnosis, your time of staying here will have to be extended according to official notice…”
That is what the official government notice says. “I will be free to leave immediately,” yet when I asked the workers here about that statement, they claimed that I was misinterpreting the text. Clearly, my English skills have regressed rapidly. When I asked for a blood test, the official way to confirm whether or not I carry the virus, I was denied, “We only test people who look sick. You don’t look sick. If you develop a fever, we will test you.”
So I am still here in my hotel room, healthy but treated as if I have the plague. Counting down the days. One down, six more to go.
Ji Le of the blog “Eye on China” (Un oeil sur la Chine) has written about the flu containment measures in Shanghai and has also included photos. An excerpt, translated by CDT:
He approaches, ready to point his infrared gun at me. He is covered from head to toe in a white suit and a mask that reveals only his eyes. Four little red spots turn onto my neighbor. Next, it’s my turn. We’re not in an episode of “Invaders,” but have just arrived at the Pudong airport. A group of men in white raided the plane, and now surround a woman, two rows behind me. Everyone in the plane turns to look at her, and she is visibly embarrassed. Someone is possibly contaminated! The men in white discuss amongst themselves. A few questions, and then they continue down the cabin, gun in hand. It’s good. No one on board has a fever. It would have taken just one feverish passenger for us to all get quarantined.
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- June 12, 2009 3:25 PM
Why China is Acting Aggressively on Swine Flu
On the Christian Science Monitor blog, Peter Ford looks at China’s reaction to the swine flu outbreak:
Nobody could accuse Beijing of a coverup over swine flu. The national TV evening news Monday, when the first confirmed case was reported on the mainland, reported little else, and the authorities broadcast a very public manhunt. Within 24 hours, they had tracked down and quarantined more than 80 percent of the people who had come in contact with the victim between Tokyo and the provincial Chinese city where he was hospitalized.
If all this seems rather like overkill, it illustrates just how determined China is to be above reproach in its reaction to this public-health scare after failing so badly over SARS. It also reflects a particular worry in a country where bird flu is endemic in many regions.
Bird flu has killed more than half the people it has infected, but is hardly transmissible among humans. Swine flu is benign in about 99 percent of cases, according to a study published this week in Science magazine, but it is very contagious.
Officials are afraid of a “reassortment,” a mix of two flu strains, the head of the Beijing office of the World Health Organization, Hans Troedsson, said earlier this year.
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- May 12, 2009 11:48 AM
China’s Leaders Take Visible Approach to Swine Flu
The New York Times reports on a Politburo Standing Committee meeting convened this morning by President Hu Jintao to discuss the swine flu outbreak. In an unprecedented move, the meeting was immediately announced to the public:
After struggling to cope six years ago with an outbreak of SARS, the Chinese leadership is taking a much more visible approach now to swine flu. Premier Wen Jiabao held a cabinet meeting on Tuesday morning to discuss preparations for the disease and call for an interagency effort to address it. President Hu announced a few hours later that China was stepping up its inspection and quarantine procedures for people and imports of pigs and pork products.
And on Wednesday, Vice Premier Li Keqiang toured the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Beijing and called for manufacturers to produce more face masks, sterilization chemicals and flu medicines.
East Asia, Central Asia and South Asia have not yet had a laboratory-confirmed case of swine flu, although suspected cases are being tested, notably in South Korea and Hong Kong. But flu experts predict that the disease will arrive in the region soon, if it has not already.
From Al Jazeera:

See also from Danwei: “China denies Fujian origin of swine flu.” Also from Caijing:
China should stockpile flu vaccines and other anti-flu drugs as soon as possible to help contain any outbreaks of swine flu, an expert who attended an emergency conference on government preparations for a possible pandemic told Caijing.
Research on a specialized swine flu vaccine is still ongoing, but current flu vaccines will offer some measure of protection and may help prevent infection, the expert, who declined to be identified, told Caijing. He spoke following the conference, which was called by the Chinese Center For Disease Control and Prevention on April 27.
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- April 30, 2009 5:46 PM
China Reports 7 New Deaths from Child Virus
Following seven more deaths, a total of 57 people have died this year from hand, foot and mouth disease, AP reports:
About 126,000 cases have been reported this year — nearly 55,000 in March alone, 31 of which were fatal. Almost all patients were children under age 5. Health officials have said this year’s strain is especially strong.
In China’s central Henan province alone, 25 deaths have been reported among about 31,000 cases, up 50 percent from figures released last week, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. The seven deaths reported Thursday occurred in Henan.
State media reported last year that the virus sickened 27,000 children and killed dozens in the first few months of 2008 before reports of outbreaks subsided in May.
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- April 16, 2009 2:49 PM
Gates Foundation Launches 3rd Initiative in China
The Gates Foundation today launched a $33 million initiative to partner with the Chinese government to combat tuberculosis. From the Seattle Times:
The new program aims to show that with better diagnosis, streamlined treatment regimens and improved patient monitoring, China can control a disease that currently afflicts 4.5 million of its people and kills more than 200,000 a year.
Effective treatment of ordinary tuberculosis is also the key to slowing the evolution of drug-resistant strains, including multidrug-resistant, or MDR, TB, Gates said.
“The alarming threat of drug-resistant TB is rising because of gaps and mistakes in the way we treat TB,” he said. “If we improve basic TB prevention and control, we will cut off MDR-TB at the source.”
China has the world’s second-highest number of TB infections, after India, and accounts for about a quarter of the world’s drug-resistant cases. Worldwide, about 2 million people die from TB every year.
An AP article reporting on remarks made by the head of the World Health Organization at a conference in Beijing on TB gives more details about drug-resistant strains of the disease:
“Call it what you may — a time-bomb or a powder keg,” Chan said at the opening of a three-day meeting on drug-resistant TB in Beijing. “Any way you look at it, this is a potentially explosive situation.”
TB is caused by germs that spread when a person with active TB coughs, sneezes or speaks. It’s ancient and treatable but now has evolved into stronger forms: multidrug-resistant TB, which does not respond to two top drugs, and extensively drug-resistant TB, which is virtually untreatable.
Left unchecked, people with drug-resistant TB could potentially spread the disease to others, creating an epidemic in the highly mobile global economy. Even when detected, the infected have to switch to more potent and expensive medicines, posing a problem for many countries with underfunded health care systems.
Of the more than 9 million people around the world who contract tuberculosis every year, about 500,000 get multi-drug resistant TB.
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- March 31, 2009 8:57 PM