NEW ORLEANS (AP) - Chinese authorities have quarantined New
Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, his wife and a security guard in Shanghai
after another traveler on their flight from New Jersey exhibited
suspected swine flu symptoms.
Nagin's office said the three were quarantined in a hotel Sunday
as a precaution and were exhibiting no flu symptoms.
"He's doing well. His spirits are fine," Nagin's spokeswoman
Ceeon Quiett told The Associated Press on Monday in New Orleans.
She did not know when the three might be released or whether they
will be tested for the flu.
She said the quarantine was for passengers who sat near the
traveler with flu-like symptoms but she did not know if anybody
besides the Nagin trio was affected. Quiett also did not release
the name of the airline, deferring to embassy officials.
The U.S. Consulate in Shanghai and local officials did not
respond to questions Monday.
China has been imposing quarantines and temperature checks at
airports throughout the country to prevent the virus from
spreading. If the quarantined individuals display no flu symptoms,
they are usually released in about seven days.
Last month, China quarantined a group of 21 students and three
teachers from a Maryland private school for five days in a hotel.
Officials feared the group from the Barrie School in Silver Spring
was exposed to swine flu on their flight from San Francisco to Hong
Kong.
The World Health Organization reported that, as of Monday
morning, 73 countries had officially reported 25,288 cases of
infection. Most of the cases have been mild, though 139 people have
died.
Nagin's office said a passenger on the flight from Newark, N.J.,
had "signs and symptoms of an influenza-like illness suspected to
be of the H1N1 subtype."
Wei Xin, with the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C., could not
provide specific information on the matter. She referred to a
statement last month by a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign
Ministry that said steps such as quarantine are taken in an effort
to stop the virus' spread.
Three other city employees on the trip were not sitting close
enough to the passenger to be quarantined, Quiett said. They were
the deputy head of the press office, James Ross, city economic
development director Ernest Gethers and Lisa Ponce de Leon,
director of international affairs.
Quiett said Nagin has been in contact with city officials in New
Orleans and that city business continues in his absence. She said
the business of the trip was being tended to by others in the city
delegation.
Nagin left Friday on for what his office called an economic
development trip and had two meetings in Shanghai before getting
the quarantine notice, Quiett said. Private interests were to pay
for that leg of his trip, Quiett said, though she did not say who
those interests were and said the cost was "not available to us."
Nagin was scheduled to travel next to Australia to speak at a
conference on climate change and the global recession at the
University of Sydney, but the status of those plans remained
unclear Monday morning.
New Orleans' departing recovery director, Ed Blakely, was a
professor at the university and among the conference's scheduled
speakers. A spokeswoman for the university's United States Studies
Centre has said Blakely is being made an "honorary" professor in
urban policy at the center.
Nagin's schedule initially had him in Shanghai until Tuesday and
then in Australia from Wednesday until Sunday. The mayor and his
party were due to return to New Orleans June 15.
(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
