Ten contacts of patients refuse Tamiflu and opt to stay in quarantine

Post on 22^nd May 2009 South China Morning Post EDT4

Ten people who had been in contact with swine flu patients refused to take Tamiflu and opted to remain under quarantine on the first day that the government enforced a new strategy to combat the disease.

The government yesterday activated the new arrangement under which those having had contact with swine flu patients would no longer be quarantined. They are now required to report daily to government clinics for a check-up and take a supervised dose of the antiviral drug Tamiflu. The supervised treatment is officially known as "directly observed chemoprophylaxis" (DOC).

They also have to sign an undertaking to stay at home as much as possible and to put on masks.

The Department of Health said 38 people left the Lady MacLehose Holiday Village, which is being used as a quarantine camp, yesterday. Among them, 18 had completed their quarantine while the other 20 had been put under the supervised treatment.

Ten people, including an infant under the age of two, remained in quarantine. It is understood that concerns about the possible side effects of Tamiflu were keeping them from taking it.

There have been concerns about whether the supervised treatment could be enforced. The department admitted that no medical workers would call up to check if those affected were staying at home.

Secretary for Food and Health York Chow Yat-ngok said he believed the supervised treatment could stop the spread of human swine flu in the community.

"We have given people the option of either going under DOC or staying in a quarantine camp," he said.

Medical sector legislator Leung Ka-lau said that as infections had so far been mild, even the supervised treatment should be scrapped to save medical resources and drugs.

Meanwhile, the Centre for Health Protection located 17 of the 28 passengers believed to be staying in Hong Kong and who sat near an Australian man, 52, who was Taiwan's first confirmed swine flu case, on a Cathay Pacific flight from New York to Hong Kong on Monday.