Wednesday, January 07, 2009
A 19-year-old Beijing woman has died of avian flu, reigniting fears of bird flu transmission to humans.
It is the first reported death from the disease in the mainland for nearly a year.
Chinese University microbiologist Paul Chan Kay-sheung said yesterday that, as long as the virus continues to circulate in poultry, the threat of transmission to humans remains.
"There is no sign avian flu is weakening. So we expect to see more humans getting the virus from birds," Chan said.
He also warned that, once human-to-human transmissions were detected, the world could face a pandemic.
Chan said global statistics indicate the death rate of bird flu in humans is 60 percent, which is "very high" when compared with one in a thousand in normal human flu.
He said the large human traffic between Hong Kong and the mainland increases the risk of transmission. But he stopped short of saying Hong Kong should stockpile the new H5 vaccines.
Confirmation of the H5N1 death in Beijing was received by the Department of Health's Centre for Health Protection yesterday.
A CHP spokesman said the victim was a 19-year- old woman who lived in a Beijing suburb.
She developed symptoms on December 24 and died on January 5.
According to the Xinhua News Agency, the woman, Huang Yanqing, died on Monday after buying nine ducks at a market in Beijing's neighboring Hebei province.
The bureau said 116 people had been in close contact with Huang.
One of them, a nurse, had contracted a fever but recovered.
In Vietnam, authorities reported an eight-year- old girl has tested positive for H5N1 in the north of the country.
The girl contracted pneumonia in Thanh Hoa province on December 27 after eating poultry and was admitted to a provincial hospital on January 2, local officials said.
She is recovering well, they added.
hat-tip Shiloh
No comments:
Post a Comment