Vacationers Advised to Avoid Crowds
By Bae Ji-sook
Staff Reporter
The first case of influenza A (H1N1) among local residents to have an undetermined location of transmission was reported Friday, according to the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Management (CDCM).
It advised vacation goers to refrain from visiting crowded places.
According to the authorities, a 36-year-old woman was recently confirmed to have contracted the disease after suffering from a high fever since July 2. However, the CDCM could not determine where the woman, a nursery school teacher, became infected. She had never been abroad and had not been in the vicinity of a patient with the new strain of influenza.
She may have visited crowded places and contracted the virus from an unacquainted person it surmised.
The woman is now in isolation and the government has recommended that her family members and students refrain from going outside for seven days.
This month, 13 people have been confirmed with the infection. All of them are suspected of having contracted the virus at events involving people who have been abroad.
Five members of a group of 45 Christians were confirmed with the virus after a trip to Thailand from June 17 to July 2. Two university students were confirmed after returning from a trip to the Philippines from June 24 to July 4.
In addition, another two patients were diagnosed with the disease after attending a large camp where 8,500 university students from more than four countries gathered for four days. The disease center assumes that all attendees may have been exposed to the virus.
``If you have been to large events and have runny nose, high fever or sore throat, please report to the nearest public healthcare center,'' Shin Sang-sook, a ministry official, said.
So far, Korea has confirmed 367 cases of the influenza infection with 91 now hospitalized.