The first A/H1N1 flu patient in the Chinese mainland was discharged from hospital at 4 p.m. Sunday in the southwestern Sichuan Province, local authorities said.

As of Sunday, the province had lifted the quarantine for all the 166 people who had been exposed to the patient surnamed Bao, said Shen Ji, director of the provincial health department.

The 30-year-old student, who had returned to China from a U.S. university, started experiencing symptoms of fever, sore throat and cough after arriving in Chengdu, Sichuan's provincial capital. He was confirmed as an A/H1N1 flu patient on May 11.

Officials started to track down passengers who flew with Bao and the taxi drivers and doctors who treated Bao before he was test positive for A/H1N1.

Another flu patient, surnamed Lu, is recovering in the Infectious Disease Hospital in Jinan City, in east China's Shandong Province. "We are preparing to discharge Lu as he shows no more flu symptoms," said the hospital's president Chen Shijun.

"If he shows no symptoms for three days and is tested negative for A/H1N1, he will be discharged," he added.

China has reported three confirmed cases of the flu in the mainland, with the latest one in Beijing late on Saturday. The 18-year-old female patient surnamed Liu, also a returned Chinese student from the United States, was in a stable condition with normal temperature, local health authorities said.

"There is nothing to fear," Liu said in a telephone interview with Xinhua. "It's just a new flu, a not-so-terrible one."

Liu only had contact with her mother and a taxi driver who carried her to the Peking University Hospital. Neither had shown flu symptoms, according to Beijing Health Bureau.

Fang Laiying, the bureau director, expressed appreciation to Liu for avoiding meeting people and keeping a clear diary about her journey.

"She even kept the receipt from the taxi driver, otherwise it would be difficult for us to find that person," Fang said.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao had a voice and video meeting with Liu on Sunday.

He said overseas students in epidemic areas should learn more to protect themselves from the flu and understand the preventive and control measures China has taken.

Beijing Municipal Health Bureau and Beijing Centers for Disease Control and Prevention jointly issued a letter to the country's overseas students, reminding them of keeping specific travel information and avoiding meeting people in the public when they return home.

The two organizations also issued a letter to the students' parents, urging them to help their children to enhance self-protection.

Sunday is also a good day for some in other parts of China for whom the quarantine was lifted.

In the northeastern Liaoning Province, six people who were recorded close contact with Bao and had been under quarantine for seven days returned home.

Two others in the province, who had been exposed to an A/H1N1 flu patient in Hong Kong, resumed normal work.

China's central Hubei Province had tracked 11 people exposed to the patients in Hong Kong, Shandong and Sichuan. All of them were discharged after being under quarantine for a week.

A person from the northwestern Gansu Province who flew with Bao from Sichuan in the same aircraft also ended quarantine.

(Xinhua News Agency May 17, 2009)