Swine flu family's Chinese protest

Meredith Aylott is swabbed by a Chinese health official. The Aylott family are currently staying in a motel outside of Wenzhou city centre. Photo / Supplied

A pregnant Auckland woman quarantined in China with swine flu is battling the local authorities to receive the care she needs.

Victoria Aylott, from Parnell, has been in isolation with her family since arriving in Wenzhou in south-eastern China on Friday evening.

Her daughters Celeste - who has a broken arm - and Meredith were suspected of carrying H1N1 because health officials at the airport found they had high temperatures.

After protesting against the dirty, tiny rooms they had been quarantined in underneath local hospitals, the family was placed in a motel outside the city centre.

But Mrs Aylott said she was contacted by the Shanghai consul yesterday and told the family had to return to cramped, unsanitary hospital rooms.

"We're not ill. We don't need to be in a hospital. But there is so much fear here because of their Sars experience," she said.

"The uncertainty and stress is not very nice ... while I am in my first trimester. Not knowing where we are being moved is stressful."

She said she would refuse to move if authorities approached her last night.

"They will have a fight on their hands. We are going to dig our heels in. We have tried to be accommodating. We have not said quarantine is ridiculous ... it is the quality of where they have prepared to put us."

Celeste, 5, broke her arm at Parnell School three hours before their flight to China. Her parents were concerned she would not receive adequate treatment in isolation, but health officials have promised she will be given an x-ray tomorrow.

Her father Caspar Aylott, an orthopaedic surgeon, said the fact that the girls carried swine flu despite appearing fit indicated how many people must be carriers in New Zealand.

"As a doctor, it says to me that this H1N1 must be endemic.

If our children have got it, while fit and well and going to Parnell kindy and school, it must be everywhere."

Parnell District School principal Gary Cain told the Herald he would need a firmer medical opinion before informing parents of a possible spread of infection.