Saturday, 11 July 2009 | 7:34 PM
JAKARTA, KOMPAS.com-Foreign Ministry Spokesman Teuku Faizasyah confirmed on Saturday that a number of Indonesians attending an Asian Choir Contest in South Korea had contracted the H1N1 disease.
“A report saying that a number of Indonesians have been infected with the virus is true,” Faizasyah said but he could not yet give further details on the matter.
Earlier reports said that 14 Indonesian taking part in the choir contest in Changwon city, South Korea, were confirmed on Saturday by the local health officials to have been suffering from swine flu.
Reuters reported fourteen Indonesians attending a choir contest in South Korea were confirmed H1N1 patients on Saturday in the country’s largest daily confirmations as organizers rushed to send more than 1,000 participants home.
On Sunday, 404 Chinese and nearly 300 Indonesians are expected to fly home after the contest in the southern city of Changwon was canceled on Saturday. Many others are planning departures on Monday.
Health authorities are running tests on 34 other Indonesians with flu symptoms, provincial and Health Ministry officials said. South Korea has had 394 confirmed cases of the flu with 80 people in quarantine.
The choir contest drew more than 1,500 people from abroad. The H1N1 swine flu virus first emerged in Mexico in March and was spreading out of control in the United States by the time it was identified at the end of April. The World Health Organization declared a pandemic in June. It has killed close to 500 people globally.
