 |
A Chinese expert with a bird flu vaccine. China has announced it will vaccinate its entire poultry population of 14 billion after two more outbreaks occurred in Xinjiang. |
According to the South China Morning Post yesterday, Qi Xiaoqiu, Director of the Infectious Disease Agency under China’s Ministry of Health, confirmed that the first human case of bird flu has been reported in the country. This case involves a 9-year-old boy from Hunan Province, who was hospitalized last month due to suspected bird flu.
The report states that Mr. Qi Xiaoqiu announced this news at an international conference on China-U.S. relations. He indicated that the boy’s blood tests showed the presence of H5N1 virus antibodies.
The boy has since recovered and been discharged from the hospital, while his 12-year-old sister has died with a diagnosis of suspected bird flu infection. In the village where the siblings lived, an outbreak occurred at the end of October, resulting in the death of over 500 chickens. At that time, Hong Kong media reported that the siblings were hospitalized with flu-like symptoms after consuming dead chickens.
Previously, Chinese authorities had ruled out the possibility of bird flu transmission to humans in the country, but they have now acknowledged this risk. Mr. Qi Xiaoqiu stated: “In our initial tests, we did not find traces of the virus in the boy’s blood, but subsequent tests showed the presence of bird flu antibodies. We are currently awaiting the World Health Organization to verify these results because, according to WTO regulations, a human infection case requires confirmation from two laboratories.”
He added that the initial failure to confirm bird flu was due to the inexperience of Chinese laboratories. A team of WHO experts has flown to Hunan to investigate this case.
UK: 53 quarantined canaries have died
The UK Environment Department announced on November 14 that 53 canaries, quarantined after being brought from Taiwan to the UK, have died from the H5N1 virus.
These canaries were held at a special quarantine center in Essex (eastern England). Also at this location, at the end of October, a parrot died, which later tested positive for the H5N1 bird flu virus. This parrot was imported from Suriname in September and was also in quarantine as per UK regulations. However, it is unknown whether these birds died from the same virus. The UK Environment Department confirmed that since these birds died while in quarantine, the UK has not reported any cases of bird flu transmission.
Australia: Commits $4 billion to bird flu pandemic fund
Foreign ministers and trade representatives from the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum began their annual meeting yesterday, focusing on economic issues, counter-terrorism, trade liberalization, and bird flu prevention among the agenda items. Regarding the prevention of a potential bird flu pandemic in humans, the Australian representative emphasized the importance of information systems among experts and committed to contributing $4 billion to the APEC fund to address this issue.
TRAN DUC THANH (According to CNA, SCMP, AFP)
