A top Beijing health official urged residents Thursday not to panic over swine flu, state media said, hours after the Health Ministry confirmed the Chinese mainland's fifth case of the disease, AP reported. The Chinese capital has taken «all necessary control and prevention measures,» the official Xinhua News Agency quoted Deng Ying, director of the Beijing Center for Disease Control and Prevention, as saying. Deng called on residents not to panic and promised to further strengthen prevention efforts, Xinhua said. China's latest case, a 21-year-old Canadian man originally from Beijing, was in stable condition at the city's main infectious disease hospital, the Health Ministry said late Wednesday. Those who had close contact with him were under medical observation, but none had shown flu symptoms. The man arrived in Beijing on Saturday aboard an Air Canada flight from Toronto and began running a fever the next day, the ministry said. On Tuesday, he checked into a hospital and the next day was transferred to the infectious disease hospital, where he was found to have swine flu. The case is the second in the Chinese capital and the fifth on the mainland. Three other cases have been confirmed in the Chinese-ruled Hong Kong autonomous region. Quarantines and temperature checks have been enforced throughout the country to prevent the virus from spreading. In 2003, China's slow response was widely blamed for causing the global outbreak of SARS, and officials have been especially careful to avoid a reoccurrence this time. The World Health Organization says 41 countries have reported more than 10,000 cases, mostly in the U.S. and Mexico. The organization says 80 deaths have been reported.
