Despite stepped-up security and health screenings, swine flu has finally reached the shores of Singapore. Thankfully, this 'Patient Zero' is doing fine.
The Singapore Management University (SMU) organized a business study mission to New York for 20 students. In addition to picking up business skills, one of the students also managed to catch the new A(H1N1) influenza, otherwise known as swine flu.
The 22-year-old student developed a cough while on the flight back to Singapore, but managed to clear the thermal scanners installed at Changi Airport as she had not yet become feverish. She later went to see her general practitioner who made the call to send her to Tan Tock Seng Hospital, where special facilities for monitoring and containing swine flu are available.
Three people - the student's boyfriend, her teacher-in-charge and a fellow exchange student - have been quarantined and are under observation. SMU has also contacted the other students who went for the trip and has alerted them. The Health Ministry has also begun trying to locate those at risk of developing the flu.
So far, besides developing a fever of 39 to 40 degrees Celsius, Singapore's 'Patient Zero' "remained clinically comfortable and merely show[ed] signs of a typical seasonal flu," said Associate Professor Leo Yee Sin, head of the Communicable Disease Centre (CDC) in Singapore.
SMU defended itself against allegations that it had irresponsibly greenlighted the study trip, saying that students had the option of not going for the trip. They also took their temperature daily and were issued with N95 masks. The students did not visit the borough of Queens during their stay, which then was the only area in New York to experience swine flu infections.
This failed to placate some blog commenters, one of whom retorted, "It is extremely irresponsible on the part of Singapore Management University to allow the NY trip to proceed despite the destination being an infected area, and even more irresponsible of them now to defend that decision by saying the students had the option of not making the trip."
