Hong Kong boy infected with bird flu virus

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http://www.enn.com/news/2003-02-20/s_2729.asp

 

Hong Kong boy infected with bird flu virus

 

Thursday, February 20, 2003

By Tan Ee Lyn, Reuters

 

HONG KONG -- A Hong Kong boy has been infected with a

bird flu virus, the second time the potentially deadly

disease is known to have jumped from birds to humans

since it killed six people in the territory in 1997.

 

The 9-year-old's father and younger sister both died

of pneumonia around the time he fell ill while on a

trip to China, health authorities said in a statement.

It was not clear if they had contracted the same

virus.

 

The boy developed flulike symptoms on Feb. 9 while

visiting relatives in China's southern Fujian

province, returned to Hong Kong the next day, and was

subsequently admitted to hospital, the statement said.

He is now in stable condition.

 

" The virus isolated was different from the 1997

strains that infected humans, " the Health Department

said.

 

The boy's 8-year-old sister fell ill while in China

and died in a hospital there on Feb. 4. His

33-year-old father fell ill in China on Feb. 7 and

died 10 days later in a Hong Kong hospital.

 

The Health Department said it was working closely with

health authorities in mainland China, which has

repeatedly denied any links with bird flu cases found

in Hong Kong. The territory imports a large number of

chickens from China.

 

Health officials said they testing everyone with

severe pneumonia for the virus but had found no other

positive results.

 

The World Health Organization said it had alerted its

worldwide global influenza surveillance network and

that tests would be done to determine the cause of all

three cases and trace the source of the infections. It

said the results should be available in a few days.

 

Hong Kong and China are in their peak flu season.

 

Last week people in the southern Chinese province of

Guangdong swept store shelves clean of medicines after

a virulent strain of infectious pneumonia killed five

people.

 

Hong Kong has taken extraordinary measures in recent

months to prevent any repeat of the tragedy in 1997,

when the avian virus was first known to have jumped

the species barrier to humans.

 

It has killed nearly 20,000 chickens and other poultry

in recent months after they were found to be infected

with the virus.

 

The congested territory of 6.8 million people has been

hit by three major bird flu outbreaks in the last five

years, each time leading to massive culls.

 

Some 900,000 chickens were killed in February 2002,

and in 1997 and 2001 Hong Kong's entire chicken

population of more than 1 million birds were

slaughtered.

 

Source: Reuters

 

 

 

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