BEIJING, May 11 (Xinhua) -- Beijing health authorities are seeking 147 passengers who were on a Tokyo-Beijing flight with a Chinese man who has become the mainland's first confirmed case of A/H1N1 flu, a government spokesman said here Monday.

    The confirmed carrier, who had been a student in the United States, took Northwest Airlines flight NW029 to Beijing at 1:30 a.m. May 9, after making a transfer in Tokyo from St. Louis, Missouri, and St. Paul, Minnesota, both in the United States.

    He then flew from Beijing to Chengdu on Sichuan Airlines flight3U8882 the same day, the Ministry of Health said Sunday.

    The increase in the number of passengers being sought were four people who were transferred to Beijing Monday for quarantine. The four who were said to visit other neighboring areas of Beijing were isolated in areas after Bao was confirmed as a A/H1N1 case, said an official surnamed Jin with Beijing Municipal Government.

An ambulances carrying the ones isolated for observation for the A/H1N1 influenza drives into the Guomen Hotel in Beijing, capital of China, May 11, 2009. Beijing started to quarantine passengers who had been on the same flight with the first case of A/H1N1 influenza reported in Chinese mainland on Monday. A male surnamed Bao, who recently returned from the United States, tested positive for the A/H1N1 influenza and was "recovering" in Chengdu according to the Ministry of Health on Monday. The Beijing health authoroties were seeking 143 passengers who were on the Tokyo-Beijing flight NW029 together with Bao.(Xinhua/Li Wen) Photo Gallery>>>

    In previous reports filed by Xinhua, the number of passengers being sought by the Beijing health authorities was placed at 143.

    Deng Ying, chief of Beijing Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said the passengers included 75 foreign nationals and 72 Chinese citizens.

    The Beijing Center for Disease Control and Prevention also sent text messages asking those who were on the plane with Bao to report to the center.

A relative of the one isolated for observation for the A/H1N1 influenza brings articles for daily use to the isolated in Beijing, capital of China, May 11, 2009.(Xinhua/Li Wen) Photo Gallery>>>

    As of 2 p.m. Monday, the municipal health department had contacted 121 out of the 147 people on flight NW029, and were still looking for 26 other passengers, including 24 foreign nationals.

    According to Deng, Bao stayed for more than nine hours at Xinhanglv Hotel in Shunyi district before he caught flight 3U8882.All 103 people around the hotel, including nine foreign nationals, were therefore told to keep a week-long observation at the hotel.

    None had shown fever symptoms, said Deng.

    Deng said the municipal health department had also informed concerned localities to seek 10 other people who took the same van from the hotel to the airport together with Bao.

    Sun Hao, spokesman for Beijing's emergency response liaison office, a coordination organization in the disease control of the city, said that among the passengers, there were foreign nationals who had checked into hotels in Beijing. The health department was "persuading them to take quarantine measures." The attitude was totally different for passengers of Chinese citizenship who were forced to receive week-long observations in designated medical establishments.

    Yu Debin, deputy chief of Beijing Municipal Tourism Administration, confirmed that 151 people arranged to stay at the Guomenlu Hotel near the airport for medical observation, including59 foreigners. This hotel, with only 188 beds, was used to quarantine people in an earlier flu case involving a Mexican national who ended up in Hong Kong.

    The domestic passengers were found to be residents in 14 districts and neighboring counties in Beijing.

    The case, the first in the mainland so far, involved a 30-year-old man surnamed Bao.

    According to the Sichuan Health Department, which reported the case to the Health Ministry Sunday afternoon, Bao was in the Sichuan People's Hospital with a fever and was "initially diagnosed as a suspected A/H1N1 influenza case" based on his symptoms and laboratory tests. And the Ministry of Health said Monday morning he tested positive for A/H1N1 influenza. He is now at the Chengdu Infectious Disease Hospital.

    All crew on flight 3U8882 were kept under quarantine. A daily reporting system for those with close contact with Bao was also launched Sunday.

    The Sichuan Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention clarified that as of 3 p.m. Monday they had contacted and quarantined 128 out of the 150 passengers aboard the flight from Beijing to Chengdu with Bao.

    With assistance from police, Sichuan Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention is looking for the remaining 22 passengers who moved on after arriving on flight 3U8882 in Chengdu Saturday afternoon, said the Sichuan Provincial Health Department.

    Guangdong Province in south China has also joined the manhunt.

    Guangdong Provincial Health Bureau published a bilingual announcement in English and Chinese at midday Monday asking passengers who traveled in the above mentioned two flights, and who had plans to visit Guangdong, to report to local disease control centers to receive medical observation.

    Guangdong Provincial Health Bureau was informed by the Health Ministry early Monday that seven passengers had plans to travel to Guangdong.

    The whereabouts of four of those seven passengers is now known: Two of them were in Beijing, and one each in Nanning, capital of south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, and Chengdu, capital of Sichuan.

    The authorities were still seeking the remaining three who were said to be nationals of the United States, said Guangdong Provincial Health Bureau.

    There were altogether 233 passengers on flight NW029, including106 foreign nationals, said Xu Xiaoyuan, deputy chief of the infectious disease section with the No.1 Hospital affiliated to Peking University, at a press conference held by the Chinese Health Ministry in Beijing Monday afternoon.

    The health ministry confirmed that most of the passengers from the flight had already been tracked down and isolated at local health institutions in 21 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions, including Heilongjiang, Liaoning, Yunnan, Shanxi, Gansu provinces, Chongqing City, in addition to Beijing city, and Sichuan and Guangdong provinces.

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