【华盛顿邮报】Caught in China's Aggressive Swine Flu Net

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Caught in China's Aggressive Swine Flu Net
Quarantine Measures Keep Cases Down but Virtually Imprison Healthy Travelers

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/28/AR2009052803919.html
By Ariana Eunjung Cha Washington Post Foreign Service  Friday, May 29, 2009


Miguel Gomez of Alexandria, in China for his anniversary, was isolated for having a temperature of 98.9 degrees.

BEIJING, May 28 -- In ordinary times, Miguel Gomez's temperature of 98.9 degrees Fahrenheit, a mere 0.3 degrees above the benchmark for normal, would hardly be cause for alarm. But to the Chinese medical officials who boarded his flight last week to search for passengers with signs of swine flu, it was enough to deem him a public health threat.

Gomez, a 29-year-old Alexandria native, was separated from his wife, ordered to put on a mask and rushed by ambulance to a quarantine facility near the airport.

"I was feeling a little scared," Gomez recalled, "mainly because I had no way of contacting anyone."

Although he was eventually found to be free of any serious illness, including swine flu, Gomez spent three days confined in an infectious disease ward. He did not see a single uncovered human face his entire stay.

Doctors and nurses in head-to-toe biohazard suits sampled his blood, swabbed his throat and came into his room every few hours to test his temperature. Anonymous hands pushed meals through a small hole. Receptionists wearing masks passed messages to him by rapping on his only window, which faced inside the facility so he could be observed around the clock.

While the spread of swine flu seems to have slowed for the time being, and other countries have relaxed previous restrictions on public gatherings and travel, China has become increasingly vigilant -- throwing several thousand foreigners and Chinese nationals into quarantine facilities for having little more than a cough, runny nose or slight temperature and having been in contact with someone with a suspected case of swine flu.

Some public health experts say its aggressive measures to deal with a possible pandemic -- devised after China's slow and secretive response to the deadly SARS virus in 2003 was blamed for spreading the respiratory disease -- should serve as a model for other countries. Statistically speaking, China's efforts have been an amazing success this time around. Of a total of 13,400 confirmed infections worldwide, only 14 have been in China, though nearly a fifth of the world's population lives within its borders.

From a public relations standpoint, however, China's medical checks and quarantine procedures have been a disaster.

Mexico has accused China of unfairly targeting Mexican nationals with no symptoms, even those who had not been to Mexico in months. The situation has been so tense that Mexico chartered a plane this month to bring some of its citizens home. In the Chinese territory of Hong Kong, an entire hotel, the Metropark, was quarantined -- at great expense to the hotel and at great inconvenience to the approximately 240 guests, some of whom blogged about the resulting boredom and heavy drinking -- after one person staying there was found to have swine flu.

This week, 21 students and three teachers from the private Barrie School in Silver Spring have been quarantined on two floors of a four-star hotel in Kaili, a city in the southwestern province of Guizhou. A fellow passenger on the group's flight from the United States had a fever, but the high school students are symptom-free. The teenagers, who arrived in China on May 22, have been told they will be able to leave the hotel Friday -- giving them just one day for sightseeing before their flight home on Sunday.

"It's not what they expected, but they're having an adventure," said Debbie Silverman of Silver Spring, mother of a 16-year-old on the Barrie trip. "They're learning how not every place is like the United States, that's for sure."

Chinese officials deny that particular nationalities are being singled out for scrutiny and say all those under quarantine are being treated well. The measures are not "discriminatory in nature," said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu. "The issue is purely a matter of public health."

In Beijing, more than 650 people have been quarantined since the scare began in April. Many of them were identified at the city's international airport, where masked technicians inspect each passenger and check for fever with a thermal forehead scanner that emits a beam of light.

Those unlucky enough to have flulike symptoms are taken to a quarantine building, decorated with posters about SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, at Beijing's modern Ditan Hospital. For the time it takes to get the results of a test for swine flu -- two or three days -- this is their home.

Each patient is given a single room, painted light blue, with a bed, sink, shower, telephone and TV. Patients get three meals a day -- their choice of Chinese cuisine (mostly chicken and rice) or Western cooking (chicken and rice prepared a different way). Many of the medical professionals speak English and are very kind, patients said.

That doesn't mean that those in quarantine are not begging to get out.

Shinjo, a 32-year-old housewife from Japan who came to China with her husband for a quick three-day holiday, complained by phone from her room that even if she were released immediately, it would leave her only one day to enjoy her vacation. Jaime Freile, 23, a Spaniard who came to China on Sunday for business, said the doctors refused to believe that he had a slight fever because of a tooth infection, not swine flu.

"I protested to them and said I wanted to go home," Freile said. "I agree that the government should take this situation seriously, but in this case they failed."

Rafeal Hughley, a 25-year-old American who works as a computer systems specialist for the U.S. government, also tried to reason with his doctors, explaining that he had been stationed in South Korea for the past few months and that it was extremely unlikely he had contracted swine flu there, since South Korea has had only a single confirmed case.

"There was nowhere for me to catch it," he remembers telling the men and women who spoke to him from behind masks. "They say they know what I mean, but they still have to keep me. I think it's just the panic -- everybody is so scared."

Gomez, a manager at a retail store, arrived last Friday with his wife to celebrate their first wedding anniversary. After flying from New York and spending a few days in Hong Kong, he acknowledged, he felt tired but thought he was in good health. He was surprised when technicians singled him out and pulled him off the plane while other passengers glared.

With a temperature of 98.9 degrees Fahrenheit, Gomez was a borderline case. Doctors often consider temperatures of up to 100.4 degrees normal, given that body temperatures vary by individual and may fluctuate by one to two degrees during the course of a day because of physical activity, strong emotions or other factors.

At Ditan Hospital, Gomez was placed in a room on the fifth floor and told he could use the phone as much as he wanted or watch TV, though all the channels were in Chinese. Attendants took his temperature every few hours, and it was consistently normal. But Gomez said he understood the Chinese government's aggressive response.
"I knew how they were freaking out about swine flu here, so having a fever, I was not terribly surprised that something like this went on," he said. "I was annoyed it took as long as it did, but I can't say I was completely unexpecting."

Besides, he added, "I was definitely happy I was treated nicely."

On his second day in isolation, however, he became restless. He missed his wife, and she missed him. She had come to the hospital to bring him some snacks, so he walked out of his room, which was unlocked, to find a window from which he could wave to her. The nurses shooed him back into his room.

"It's really weird to interact with people who are completely covered. It's strange not to see anybody's face," he said. "Being in there so long, I was freaking out a little. What if I do have swine flu? . . . I'm never going to get to see my wife, my family, my friends again. That was the worst."

About noon Monday, three days after he checked in to the hospital, Gomez was finally cleared to leave the ward. A hospital official asked him to sign papers acknowledging that he had been treated well and gave him a survey to fill out. Most of the questions, he said, seemed to apply to his mental well-being, such as having to answer yes or no to the statement "I feel lonely in here."

Then the hospital gave him a surprise parting gift: a get-well card and two bottles of hand sanitizer.

Staff writer Alan Cooperman in Washington and researchers Liu Liu and Zhang Jie in Beijing contributed to this report.

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