Hospitals and other medical institutions must report suspected, clinically probable and confirmed cases of swine flu within two hours of discovery to the country's disease surveillance system, the Ministry of Health says.
The ministry issued a plan yesterday to contain the swine flu outbreak and will implement it nationwide. It also issued diagnosis instructions, reminding the public that the virus should be dealt with in the first 48 hours.
The death rate so far is 6 per cent, the ministry said.
The plan covers what medical staff and hospital management should do to handle H1N1, as well as what steps local authorities will have to take if cases in each category are reported. It recommended that suspected, probable and confirmed patients be treated in different medical wards to avoid cross-infection.
Under the plan, hospitals must register all people who will have close contact with the patients and monitor their temperature and health every day for seven days. Those who develop a fever or symptoms of respiratory disease should be sent to the designated hospitals.
For suspected, probable and confirmed patients, they will have to be treated in isolation wards of the designated hospitals for at least seven days or until their body temperature returns to normal.