China's southernmost Hainan Province reported its first A/H1N1 case with severe symptoms on Tuesday, a provincial health department official said.

Li Wenlu, a 12-year-old girl from Yuxiong Village, Dongfang City, was confirmed to be infected with the A/H1N1 virus Monday evening. She got a fever on October 7 and was treated at a village clinic for common cold. She was transferred to Haikou Municipal People's Hospital on Sunday as she had symptoms of respiratory failure, the official said.

Experts sent by the Health Ministry arrived in the provincial capital of Haikou Tuesday evening to offer medical guidance.

The ministry is to distribute 10,000 A/H1N1 vaccines to Hainan to prevent the virus from spreading.

The Chinese mainland is expected to see more serious and even fatal A/H1N1 cases as the weather cools and people return to work after the eight-day National Day holiday, said Deng Haihua, a Health Ministry spokesman on Saturday.

By Friday, the mainland had reported 22,830 cases of A/H1N1, more than 17,000 of them reported in September alone.