Health officials of Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) Tuesday held a video conference with their counterparts in the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong SAR, discussing measures of tackling the spreading threat of swine flu.

During the conference, the officials and experts reviewed the current situation of swine flu pandemic around the world, and exchanged opinions on the quarantine arrangement of suspected patients, anti-flu drug supplies, the research and development of relevant vaccine and the rapid test of new virus, according to a press release from Macao's Health Bureau.

It was agreed that a name list of health experts from the three places be drawn up facilitating their direct communication to strengthen the information sharing process and the cooperation of swine flu prevention, the Bureau said.

The Influenza Pandemic Prevention Coordination Group, an inter-departmental task force of the Macao SAR government, has raised the flu pandemic alert from level II to level III on Monday as the swine flu outbreak in Mexico continued to spread to other nations around the globe.

(Xinhua News Agency April 29, 2009)