BEIJING -China may have strict quarantine procedures in the world to limit the spread of the influenza A H1N1 as I discovered first hand today.
I'm Asia science editor . My family and I lived in Beijing for nearly 2 years. Earlier today, we got on a flight to London from Beijing Capital Airport, via Amsterdam. I had taken part in the World Conference of Science Journalists in London last week and my family and I visited relatives in the UK.
In response to the pandemic, an advice of the medical team for each international flight arriving in China and scans each passenger with an infrared thermometer. We landed, assuming that all was well. But at a counter where passengers are turning in medical reports, we were stopped on the side and said that our younger son, Quinn, who is 6 had a slight fever and would be tested for the virus of a process that take "one hour or three."
My wife was allowed to go home with our eldest son, while Quinn and I donned masks and were escorted past gawking other passengers, a backdoor and taken by ambulance-driver was dressed head -to-toe in a biological suit at a hospital downtown. We entered a makeshift isolation ward outside the hospital and a nurse wearing a surgical gown, face mask and goggles, locked the door from inside. It was a few minutes before 11:00 local time.
Quinn and I had our own room. A wall fan was whirring, but the room has no air conditioning and it was roasting. We were whomped night flying, and lounged lazily on the beds. After an hour, a nurse came and brought us a simple, takeaway Chinese lunch. Soon after, a pediatrician came and rubbed Quinn throat to test for the virus.
We waited in the afternoon for the results. If the test is positive, we would be sent to another hospital and quarantined for at least a week, and the rest of my family and other passengers on our flight would be sent to one of the local hotels that are looped to exclusively servants in quarantine. I did not expect this result, Quinn had no symptoms of the flu outside the fever. Over time, and a nurse brought us dinner, I was growing anxious. But in the end, around 19:30, we were given the green light and released from confinement.
I understand China's desire to limit the spread of influenza A, both to buy more time to prepare a vaccine and to limit the possibility that the virus mixing with avian flu much more deadly endemic to the region. It seems to work for now. Next flu season in the northern hemisphere, all paris are off.
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