A man suspected to have contracted bird
flu in Shenzhen, South China's Guangdong Province, remained
in a critical condition last night.
Blood samples from the 31-year-old man, surnamed
Jiang, were sent to the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention
on Tuesday.
The results of the test are expected within two
days, Mao Qun'an, spokesman for the Ministry of Health, said yesterday.
"Preliminary tests carried out by the local
centre for disease control showed he was positive for the H5N1
strain of bird flu," said Huang Fei, deputy director of Guangdong
Provincial Department of Health.
The man, a truck driver for a company in the city's
Longgang District, developed a fever and pneumonia on June 3 and
sought treatment at Shenzhen People's Hospital on Friday. He was
moved to the Donghu Hospital for Infectious Diseases on Monday.
"The patient's condition is still critical.
He could not speak so we are not able to get information from him
on how he was infected," Teresa Choi, principal medical and
health officer of the Centre for Health Protection (CHP) of Hong
Kong Special Administrative Region, told reporters yesterday.
Choi led a six-member expert delegation for a
meeting with their counterparts in Shenzhen yesterday afternoon
to exchange views and share information concerning the bordering
city's first human avian influenza
case.
The local government stated in a press release
on Tuesday night that the man's wife had bought a chicken two weeks
ago at a nearby wet market and cooked it for the five-member family
the same night. So far, no other family members have showed any
symptoms of bird flu.
The man had also visited the wet market which
sold chickens in the days before he fell ill, said Choi.
Roy Wadia, spokesman for the Beijing office of the World Health
Organization (WHO), said the supervision and monitoring of the epidemic
among poultry had to be strengthened.
He added public awareness needed to be raised
on how to correctly handle and cook chicken.
The man would become China's 19th reported human case if he is confirmed
as having the deadly H5N1 strain. Twelve of those cases have been
fatal.
