January 21, 2011
HONG KONG (AFP) - Two people were in critical condition in a Hong Kong hospital suffering from swine flu, health officials said Friday, one and a half years after an outbreak that killed 80 people in the city.
"A 21-year-old female is in critical condition after contracting swine flu", a spokeswoman for Hong Kong's Queen Elizabeth Hospital told AFP.
The woman, from mainland China, was admitted to hospital on January 11 and transferred to the intensive care unit on Tuesday, the spokeswoman said, adding that she could not confirm in the woman was infected outside the city.
Also Tuesday, a two-year-old girl was placed in the hospital's intensive care unit after she contracted the illness, the spokeswoman said.
Hong Kong is very nervous about infectious diseases following the outbreak of the SARS virus in 2003, which killed 300 people in the city and a further 500 around the world.
