A Ho Chi Minh City high school said Saturday it had recorded nine H1N1 cases this week during its orientation meetings before the new school year.

The infected students were all eleventh-graders, Dung said.

Nine other students with light fevers had also been quarantined in their homes for monitoring, he said.

Dr. Phan Van Nghiem from the municipal health department said a student who recently returned from a trip to Thailand might have spread the virus to others.

Students have been attending orientation meetings at school since last Monday to prepare for the new school year, which was originally scheduled for tomorrow. But Dung said the school management had decided to delay the official opening of school until next Monday.

The school, which has an enrollment of around 1,800 students, also asked staff to close outside tutoring or classes they were holding to prevent the virus from spreading further, Dung said.

Elsewhere, the University of Technology reported Saturday another eight H1N1 cases, bringing the school’s tally to nine. All the infected students had recently participated in a national defense course at the Military Zone 7 Defense Education Center in Tan Binh District.

The Ministry of Health Saturday recorded 54 new H1N1 cases nationwide, raising the country’s tally to 1,417, with two deaths. Of the total, 365 are still being treated under quarantine.

The European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) Saturday reported 226,065 people had contracted influenza A (H1N1), known also as swine flu, in 168 countries and territories. Of the cases, 2,008 have died.

Japan, South Korea report first flu deaths

A 57-year-old Japanese man has died from influenza A (H1N1) in Japan’s first death from the virus, AFP quoted a local government official as saying Saturday.

The man, a resident of Ginowan City in Japan’s southern Okinawa prefecture, died of the H1N1 virus Saturday morning, the official said.

The man, 57, who was hospitalized on Wednesday, had a chronic kidney condition and had previously experienced both kidney failure and cardiac arrest, another local official said.

He was receiving dialysis treatment for his kidney condition and had no recent records of traveling abroad, he added.

Meanwhile, South Korea has also reported its first flu fatality after a local man who returned from a trip overseas died, a health ministry official said Saturday.

“A man in his 50s died from the new flu after returning from Thailand,” Deputy Minister Lee Jong-Koo of the ministry told journalists.

The man in the southeastern province of South Gyeongsang toured Thailand from August 1-5 with his colleagues, the ministry said.

He began to show symptoms on August 8 and test results on Friday showed he was infected with the virus. He had been under intensive care at a hospital since August 10, said the ministry.

He died on Saturday morning from pneumonia and other complications caused by the influenza A (H1N1) virus, the ministry said.

Source: Thanh Nien, AFP