China reports suspected human bird flu case.
HONG KONG - China has reported a suspected human
case of the H5N1
virus, or bird flu, in a southern city bordering Hong Kong,
officials said on Friday.
The patient, a 39-year-old man living in Shenzhen, developed
symptoms on Dec. 21 and was admitted to a hospital on Dec.
25 because of severe pneumonia, the Centre
of Health Protection
of Hong Kong said in a
statement. He is now in critical condition.
China's Ministry of Health said preliminary laboratory tests
on the patient's specimen by the Centre for Disease Control
and Prevention of Guangdong Province had yielded a positive
result for H5N1.
About 10 days ago
Hong Kong culled 17,000
chickens at a wholesale poultry market and suspended
all imports of live chickens from mainland China for 21 days
after a dead chicken there tested positive for the H5N1
virus.
The virus is normally found in birds but can jump to people
who do not have immunity to it and researchers worry it
could mutate into a form that would spread around the world
and kill millions of people.