Over 100 people in south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous
Region who had been in contact with a girl diagnosed with H5N1
avian influenza have been released from medical observation, the
local health department reported on Wednesday.
Tan Mingjie, deputy head of Guangxi's Department of Health, told
Xinhua News Agency that a series of measures have been taken to
prevent further human infections.
The 10-year-old girl surnamed Tang, from Baiyangping Village of
Liangshui Township in Ziyuan County, fell ill with fever and
pneumonia on November 23.
The Ministry of Health confirmed on Tuesday that she had been
diagnosed by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and
Prevention?(China
CDC). She is now undergoing close treatment and is making a
quick recovery.
WHO spokesperson Roy Wadia told China Daily
that?the girl?had reportedly had contact with domestic
poultry one to two weeks before she fell ill, but that the details
were sketchy.
Wadia said the WHO does not know where the poultry was, whether
any birds were ill, or exactly how she contracted the virus.
Local experts, as well as those sent by the ministry, are
investigating potential sources of exposure.
There have been no reports of bird flu outbreaks among poultry
in Guangxi this year, though the region was the first to report
infections last year on January 27, 2004.
But Ziyuan County neighbors Hunan Province, which has reported
both human cases and bird outbreaks this year.
Wadia said it is difficult to trace isolated outbreaks on small
farms and stressed that there was no evidence that the virus had
acquired the ability to jump effectively or efficiently from human
to human.
Also yesterday, Hubei Province's headquarters for the prevention
and control of highly pathogenic bird flu said the quarantine of
Xiaonan District of Xiaogan City, where an outbreak was confirmed
by the Ministry of Agriculture on November 17, has been lifted,
according to Xinhua.
China has reported 30 outbreaks among birds this year in 11
provinces and autonomous regions and reported four confirmed human
infections, as well as?a likely but unverifiable one.
(Xinhua News Agency, China Daily December 8, 2005)