Hong Kong - A two-month-old baby girl in Hong Kong was in
hospital Tuesday after being diagnosed with a mild form of the bird
flu virus.
The infant, who normally lives in Shenzhen in southern China, was
diagnosed with the H9N2 strain of bird flu after being admitted to
hospital this week with a cough, runny nose and vomiting.
The controller of Hong Kong's Centre for Health Protection, Thomas
Tang, said the H9N2 strain of bird flu was different from the deadly
H5N1 strain which has killed hundreds of people.
'The clinical symptoms (with H9N2) are normally milder (than
H5N1),' he told a press conference. 'We have had four cases in the
past 10 years and they all had mild respiratory symptoms and they all
recovered.'
The H9N2 virus was widespread among chickens and geese in the
south China area, Tang said. The baby girl was Tuesday in a stable
condition in hospital, he added.
News of the baby girl's sickness came on the day live chicken
imports from China resumed in Hong Kong after a three-week ban
following an outbreak of bird flu.
Some 75,000 chickens were culled at a farm in the Yuen Long
district in early December when the outbreak of the deadly virus was
detected in 200 dead birds and also at a nearby wholesale market.
The deaths were caused by the H5N1 strain of the virus that jumps
more easily from chickens to humans and has been responsible for 246
deaths worldwide since 2003, according to World Health Organization
statistics.
Six people died and 12 others were infected in an outbreak of bird
flu in Hong Kong in 1997 that led to the culling of 1.2 million
birds. Millions more birds were slaughtered in outbreaks in 2001 and
2002.
Experts have repeatedly warned that the H5N1 strain of bird flu
threatens a global pandemic if it mutates into a form that is more
easily transmitted between humans.
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