A medical lab affiliated to the Health Bureau (SSM) of the Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) has been equipped with new tools and techniques to rapidly test the A/H1N1 influenza virus that caused the current flu pandemic around the globe, the SSM announced on Thursday.

With the help of China's Ministry of Public Health, the Department of Health of Hong Kong SAR and U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the SSM lab can now test the virus with Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) within five to six hours, the SSM said in a press statement.

According to the figures from the SSM, a total of 85 child patients and 60 adult patients with respiratory symptom were reported in the SAR's biggest public hospital on Thursday, but there was no "possible" or "confirmed" influenza A/H1N1 case detected.

As an effort to step up the prevention measures against the influenza A/H1N1, the SSM along with a number of departments and local civic groups also launched a citywide cleaning campaign on Thursday, in a bid to raise the citizens' awareness of the importance for personal and environmental hygiene in the fight against the flu.

As for the three residents held in quarantine in Hong Kong and the one in the Chinese mainland's Guangdong province, the SSM said that it had contacted relevant departments in the two places and confirmed that the four residents were in good health conditions. The three Macao residents in Hong Kong were expected to be released from quarantine on Friday, and the one in Guangdong has already been released.

So far, 23 countries around the world have officially reported over 2,000 cases of influenza A/H1N1 infection. Mexico, the epicenter of the pandemic, has reported more than 1,000 laboratory confirmed human cases of infection, including 42 deaths, according to the figures from the World Health Organization (WHO).

(Xinhua News Agency May 8, 2009)