A 19-year-old man who was suspected of being infected with A/H1N1 influenza was seriously ill in a hospital in Foshan, south China's Guangdong Province, a hospital spokesperson said Saturday.

The spokesperson from the People's Hospital in Gaoming District, Foshan City, said the patient, a student surnamed Chen at a local vocational school, was in coma and breathed with difficulty when he was sent to the hospital Thursday evening.

More than 10 workers of a local factory, where Chen worked as an intern, had fever a week after a group visit on September 23 to Conghua, another city in Guangdong, and were told by factory management to go home, Chen's father told Xinhua.

Soon after Chen was sent to the People's Hospital in Gaoming District Thursday, his father was informed that the young man had problems with his lung, heart and liver.

Experts from the Ministry of Health and the Guangdong provincial and Foshan municipal health institutions were having group consultations on Chen's case Saturday evening.

(Xinhua News Agency October 4, 2009)