By Wu Jiaqi & Yu Liang  17/01/10

The H1N1 pandemic-related death toll reported in China's Guangxi Province is the “tip of the iceberg,” according to a staff member at the Department of Health. The Department of Health in Guangxi Province put the total death toll at 12 for the province’s 14 cities as of Jan. 3.

A group of Chinese children accompanied by their parents get treatment for flu at a hospital in Hefei, east China's Anhui province on January 8, 2010.

The staff member said that this tally may account for less than 10 percent of the actual number, as majority of patients suffering from fever have not been tested for the H1N1 infection, thus keeping the official numbers low.

“It is inappropriate to compare our situation with the United States,” he said. “Small hospitals or clinics in the United States may have been equipped with the necessary testing equipment, but we haven’t been. There is always a gray area for the reporting system in China.”

In an earlier interview, a doctor in Yulin City, Guangxi Province, said that the H1N1-related death toll in his clinic included four or five people per day.

The director of the Center for Disease Control of Guangxi Province’s Department of Health, Mr. Lin, said that only hospitals are currently allowed to report H1N1-related data, while individuals are prohibited from revealing any information about the influenza.

"I have the reported figure in my hand, so I do know how many people have died, but I cannot tell you,” Lin said.

Staff at several local hospitals in the region refused to disclose any information about the treatment of patients diagnosed with the H1N1 virus. One nurse at an outpatient clinic of the First Affiliated Hospital of Guangxi Medical University said she was not authorized to talk about H1N1.

“Because it is a highly sensitive issue, if I say anything wrong, it may have an impact on society. Our superiors have advised that we should just say that the relevant information will be publicized by the competent authorities,” the nurse said.

Guangxi Province’s Yulin City Red Cross Hospital has provided medication to critically ill H1N1-infected patients. A staff member at the hospital said not all of the hospitals in Yulin City carry out H1N1 testing, as it is performed by the Health and Epidemic Prevention Station.

“H1N1 is a widespread pandemic influenza, and about 80 to 90 percent of the flu patients are infected with the H1N1 virus. We have already used anti-H1N1 drugs, but some seriously ill patients have complications such as pneumonia and encephalitis,” the hospital staff member said.

A nurse at the outpatient clinic of the Fourth People's Hospital of Nanning City, Guangxi Province, said potential H1N1-infected patients would not be admitted until they are diagnosed by the experts and meet a certain criteria.