Hong Kong On Alert After Boy Diagnosed With Bird Flu

[News_Editor]

Hong Kong on alert after boy diagnosed with bird flu < br />

2012-06-05 07:08:14 GMT+7 (ICT)

KWAI CHUNG, HONG KONG (BNO NEWS) -- Health authorities in Hong Kong and mainland China were on high alert on Monday after a toddler was diagnosed with bird flu over the weekend, the territory's first human case of the deadly disease in 1.5 year, officials said on Monday.

The two-year-old boy is being treated in isolation at the Princess Margaret Hospital in Hong Kong and remained in a serious condition on late Monday. He had already been hospitalized for several days for obstructive hydrocephalus - or water in the brain - before he was diagnosed with avian influenza H5N1 on Saturday.

"The boy's parents are all along asymptomatic, which means the chance of a human-to-human transmission is slim," a spokesman for the Center for Health Protection (CHP) of the Hong Kong Department of Health said. He said the genes characterized belong to the same clade as those found in wild birds, indicating the boy was likely infected by a bird.

CHP investigators said the toddler visited a wet market with live poultry near his residence in the Chinese city of Guangzhou in mid-May, but had no direct contact with poultry. He then spent two days in the Chinese province of Anhui before traveling to Hong Kong, where he fell ill.

Laboratory tests of nasopharyngeal aspirates taken from the boy's parents, who were initially being quarantined at the same hospital, tested negative for the bird flu virus. Five people who reported respiratory symptoms and two health care workers at the facility also tested negative for the disease.

Nonetheless, health authorities in Hong Kong have stepped up their controls following the bird flu case, which is the first human case in the territory since a 59-year-old woman tested positive in November 2010. Chinese health officials in Guangdong province, where the boy's family lives, have also been placed on a high alert as a precaution.

China, Vietnam, Indonesia and Cambodia have all reported bird flu deaths this year. A ten-year-old girl from southwestern Cambodia died of the disease late last month, the country's third bird flu death so far this year. The young girl fell ill after preparing sick chickens for food in her village.

Since 2003, the H5N1 bird flu virus has killed or forced the culling of more than 400 million domestic poultry worldwide and caused an estimated $20 billion in economic damage before it was eliminated from most of the 63 infected countries. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the bird flu virus has infected at least 605 people since it first appeared, killing 357 of them. Most cases and deaths were recorded in Indonesia, Vietnam, Egypt and China.

-- © BNO News All rights reserved 2012-06-05

[w11guy]

Just checked and I don't have it. LOL.

http://www.doihavebirdflu.org/