Checks on mail from flu-hit areas
All mail from areas with confirmed cases of swine flu will be subject to inspection and quarantine, and could be destroyed, the mainland's postal authorities said.
The State Post Bureau on Sunday issued the order that post offices in all provinces inspect all mail from countries hit by the flu, and that customs and inspection authorities quarantine or treat them, Xinhua said.
'Pigs and pork products from prohibited areas must be prevented from entering the country,' a notice from the bureau said. Personnel and vehicles used to collect mail from swine-flu-affected areas must observe quarantine precautions, it added.
Postal authorities in Shanghai, Beijing and Guangdong had been co-operative with inspection and quarantine authorities, the report said.
Cai Haodong, an infectious-disease expert at Beijing's Ditan Hospital, said the measures were well intended but probably unnecessary, as the flu virus would not survive long in open air or a dry environment.
Beijing has imposed strict inspection and quarantine measures - including isolating tourists returning from Mexico for seven days. A total of 166 passengers on AeroMexico Flight 98 were quarantined for seven days after a 25-year-old Mexican man, who was on that flight, was confirmed in Hong Kong to have been infected with swine flu.
