A team of experts from Hong Kong and Macao visited Guangzhou
yesterday to meet with officials over the latest human bird flu
fatality.
The closed-door meeting was expected to help authorities in the
two special administrative regions gain a better understanding of
the disease.
Following Guangzhou's first-ever fatal case of avian flu, many
poultry markets in the city have suffered from a plummeting demand
in live chickens. Some have reported a 90 per cent drop in
sales.
"I only sold four chickens this morning, whereas previously I
was selling 30 chickens a day," Liang Wei, a market trader in
Guangzhou, said yesterday.
A woman, surnamed Huang, said her family were eating chicken as
usual. "It is safe as long as I cook it for longer," she said.
"The odd case does not mean Guangzhou has an outbreak of bird
flu," Luo Huiming, a chief doctor of Guangdong Center for Disease
Control and Prevention (CDC), told China Daily
yesterday.
Bird flu often occurs between the December to March period, he
added.
The Chinese Ministry of Health confirmed on Sunday that a man in
south China's
Guangdong Province died of bird flu.
The victim, Lao Qiliang, 32, was an unemployed resident in
Guangzhou, the provincial capital of Guangdong.
The provincial health department said he frequented markets
where poultry was slaughtered before sale. It is believed that this
was the cause of his infection.
He developed symptoms of fever and pneumonia on February 22 and
died last Thursday.
The following day, his blood samples were tested H5N1 positive
by Guangdong CDC.
The national CDC then tested the sample again, and the Ministry
of Health confirmed bird flu as the cause of death on Sunday.
Guangdong health authorities immediately put those who had close
contact with Lao before he died under medical observation. No one
is reported to be sick, including his girlfriend.
Hong Kong stopped live poultry imports from Guangdong yesterday.
The ban will last for three weeks at least. Macao has not followed
suit.
Guangzhou Municipal Health Bureau activated its emergency
medical response scheme on Friday after the death, but did not
designate it as the most seriously graded incident.
"The virus of bird flu has not spread among human beings so far,
therefore we did not activate a higher grade scheme," Huang Sui, an
official of the bureau said yesterday.
According to the response scheme, all suspected bird flu
patients should be sent to designated hospitals, and all hospitals
should report any suspected cases of the disease to medical
authorities.
Investigations are then carried out to trace the source of the
disease. The city has also implemented a seven-day medical
observation on people who have had close contact with poultry that
have died of disease since last Friday.
The total number of human cases of bird flu in the Chinese
mainland now stands at 15.
Nine people have died, two are still under treatment and the
others have been discharged from hospital.
(China Daily March 7, 2006)