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Swine influenza (also called swine flu, hog flu, and pig flu) refers to influenza caused by those strains of influenza virus, called swine influenza virus (SIV), that usually infect pigs. Swine influenza is common in pigs in the midwestern United States (and occasionally in other states), Mexico, Canada, South America, Europe (including the United Kingdom, Sweden, and Italy), Kenya, Mainland China, Taiwan, Japan and other parts of eastern Asia.
The drama between China and Mexico over the H1N1 flu is spilling over into air space, as each country has announced plans to send planes to fetch its citizens from the other.
However, there may be a bit more diplomatic wrangling to come before anyone gets repatriated.
On Saturday, China suspended all flights from Mexico after a 25-year-old man later diagnosed with H1N1 transited through Shanghai en route to Hong Kong from Mexico City. One problem: there are still around 120 PRC citizens in Mexico who need to get home. So China said it would charter a plane to bring them back.
China’s civil aviation administration first asked Shanghai-based China Eastern Airlines to make the flight, and airline planned to send a 400-seat Airbus A340-600, according to the South China Morning Post (subscription required). However, that flight was canceled, reportedly because the airport in Tijuana didn’t have a runway long enough for the plane to land.
Next, authorities turned to the Guangzhou based China Southern Airlines, which said one of its planes left for Los Angeles on Sunday night with the intent of flying onwards to Mexico. But the flight was canceled, for reasons that remain murky. Official news agency Xinhua did not give a reason for the cancellation, though it cited the airline as saying that “it was fully prepared for the charter mission, but it was up to the government as to if and when to implement it. ” The state-run China Daily, meanwhile, cited a Dragon TV report that China Southern was unable to reach a landing arrangement with Mexican airports.
H1N1 flu is spilling over into air space??
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