Two people had caught encephalitis B in Shenzhen, health authorities said Thursday.

The two, a two-year-old boy and a 45-year-old man, were the first reported encephalitis B cases in the city this year. Both are migrants living in Pinghu Subdistrict, but they lived about 10 kilometers apart and had no contact with each other.

The boy is recovering but the man is still in a critical condition.

The boy, who lived in a duck farm, developed symptoms including high fever, vomit, sleepiness and twitch June 13.

The man developed fever June 12 and later started vomiting and developed breathing difficulties.

Both patients are migrants living in poor conditions. The boy lived at a makeshift house, which was surrounded by trash and had no mosquito net.

The man lived in a village house and worked for a factory in filthy surroundings.

Neither had been vaccinated against encephalitis B.

The places where the two patients had lived had been disinfected and mosquitoes there killed.

People who had close contact with them had been vaccinated and showed no encephalitis B symptoms, said Zhang Shunxiang, vice director of the municipal center for disease control and prevention.

Encephalitis B is spread by mosquito, and it takes from 10 to 14 days to develop symptoms after being bitten by infected mosquitoes.

The disease prevention center reminds citizens to be wary of mosquitoes, especially after rain, as Shenzhen has more mosquitoes than previous years.

In another development, two encephalitis B outbreaks have been reported in Gansu and Guangxi recently, with more than 100 children infected and two deaths recorded.

(Shenzhen Daily June 24, 2005)