[Above file photo: Associate Professor Mark Chong (middle), in a posed picture with two students.]

By Ng Wan Ching

ASSOCIATE Professor Mark Chong has had his hands full since returning from New York city on Tuesday morning.

He had led the Singapore Management University's Business Study Mission (BSM) to New York city with 20 students.

Now one of those students, Miss Theresa Wee, 22, has become Singapore's Patient Zero.

The professor has been put on home quarantine, which he thinks will last about six days if he does not come down with Influenza A (H1N1).

He had been called to Tan Tock Seng Hospital for a check-up.

At about 11pm, he was waiting for a Cisco van to take him home where he lives with his parents.

'I've been told I can't just walk out of the hospital,' said Assoc Prof Chong, 43, who teaches corporate communications at SMU.

He had been on the phone all day calling students who had been on the trip.

Two of those students, including Miss Wee, had flown back with him on Tuesday. One had returned last Friday. There are still 17 students who are in various parts of the US. None of them are in New York.

But why did the group proceed with the trip knowing that there were H1N1 cases in New York?

Lowered to yellow

When the group proceeded on the trip, the Ministry of Health had already lowered the alert level from orange to yellow and H1N1 appeared to be mild, said Assoc Prof Chong.

The spread of H1N1 cases in New York then was also contained and localised in the borough of Queens. There are five boroughs in New York city.

Queens was not part of their itinerary. As an added precaution for personal hygiene and responsibility, each student was equipped with N95 masks and a personal thermometer.

'We took our temperature daily while in New York,' said Assoc Prof Chong.

An SMU spokesman said that the trip was optional for the students in the New York BSM. Provisions would be made to adjust the grades for those who decided not to go.

'The students who are still there have been told to take their temperatures twice a day. Once any of them has a temperature of 38 deg C or higher, they have to check themselves into a hospital,' said Assoc Prof Chong.

He sat next to Miss Wee on the flight back to Singapore.

'She was very tired and slept a lot during the flight, most of it in fact. I did not notice anything unusual like a cough or running nose. And we walked through the airport scanners without any problem because she did not have a fever then,' he said.

Since then Miss Wee has been suffering a high fever of 39 to 40 deg C. She has been put on Tamiflu medication and should be on the mend soon, said Associate Professor Leo Yee Sin, clinical director of the Communicable Disease Centre.

This article was first published in The New Paper.