China reports 4th death from A/H1N1 flu
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Beijing has reported its first death case of A/H1N1 flu, also the fourth on the Chinese mainland, health authorities said Wednesday.
The patient, a freshman at the Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, had tested positive for A/H1N1 flu and died Tuesday, a spokesman with the Beijing Municipal Health Bureau said.
The young student and some other schoolmates developed fever and other flu symptoms during a military training -- a compulsory training for freshmen at Chinese universities -- in the past week in Daxing District in suburban Beijing.
The student was sent to a district hospital Monday as the physical condition deteriorated, but died Tuesday.
More than 3,000 freshmen from the university attended the military training starting Oct. 22, and 28 out of 71 who had temperatures above 38 degrees Celsius had tested positive for A/H1N1 flu, the health bureau spokesman said.
"The health and education authorities have ordered the university to enhance prevention measures and quarantine the patients. Currently, they are all in stable condition and no severe case has been reported," he said.
The A/H1N1 flu has earlier caused three deaths on the Chinese mainland -- an 18-year-old woman in Tibet who died on Oct. 4, a 43-year-old woman who died on Oct. 16 in Tibet's neighboring province of Qinghai, and an unspecified patient who died on Oct. 25 in the northwestern Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.
The Chinese mainland had reported 35,664 confirmed cases of the A/H1N1 flu by 3 p.m. Monday, the Ministry of Health said.
A total of 29,155 patients had recovered. Seventeen of 53 patients in serious conditions had been cured, the ministry said.
China is currently experiencing what experts called "a second round of A/H1N1 flu infection," as recent infections are more widespread and increasing rapidly.
The Chinese mainland also reported two A/H1N1-related deaths last Friday, but in one case, a 72-year-old man, the first severe A/H1N1 flu patient in Beijing, died of chronic illnesses even after the flu was cured.
In another case, a seven-year-old boy in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province died of seasonal influenza and severe pneumonia. The A/H1N1 strain was found in the flu viruses that infected the first grader at Yingjun Primary School in Suihua City, but it was not yet known if the A/H1N1 flu was the main cause for the boy's death.
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