Hong Kong is fortunate to have contained swine flu more than a month after the outbreak in Mexico and the US. So far, all cases identified in Hong Kong - and on the mainland - were imported from North America, with no community outbreak.
With memories of severe acute respiratory syndrome still fresh, Hong Kong acted decisively after identifying the first case of swine flu on May 1. The patient, a 25-year-old tourist from Mexico, was kept in isolation in hospital for a week. And 286 guests and workers in the Metropark Hotel, where the man had stayed, were also quarantined.
On May 13, Hong Kong identified its second case, this time, a local man who had returned from San Francisco. By this time, the first case on the mainland had also been identified, a student who returned from St Louis. The disease was being spread by travellers from North America.
Secretary for Food and Health York Chow Yat-ngok wrote to his US counterpart, Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary for health and human services, asking Washington to screen outgoing air passengers to avoid exporting swine flu cases.
He pressed his case again when he saw the American official in Geneva at the World Health Assembly meeting and told her what Hong Kong had done in managing departing travellers during the Sars outbreak in 2003, including requiring a health declaration and thermal screening.
Apparently, he was unsuccessful. The US side said it had adopted measures such as a public education campaign and advising people not to travel if they were sick.
The international attitude towards the current swine flu epidemic is starkly different from when Hong Kong and southern China were hit by Sars. At the time, many voices were raised, calling for the isolation of Hong Kong and the mainland, as well as the exit screening of departing passengers not only from Hong Kong and the mainland but also from Toronto, Vietnam and Singapore.