Hospitals have been put on serious alert after a boy who came to Hong Kong from Guangdong was confirmed to have caught bird flu.
The Centre for Health Protection said the two-year-old, who lives in Guangdong but was born in Hong Kong, arrived last Saturday and sought medical attention from a private clinic in Mong Kok three days after developing fever in Guangdong. He subsequently suffered convulsions and was taken to the accident and emergency department of Caritas Medical Centre on Monday, where he was admitted for suspected encephalitis. Last night he was transferred to the infectious disease centre at Princess Margaret Hospital, Kwai Chung, for isolation treatment.
A spokesman for the centre said the boy tested positive for AH5 bird flu virus. It will require further testing to tell whether the boy is suffering from the deadly H5N1 subtype of the disease.
He said the boy lived in Guangdong with his parents and maternal grandmother. How he contracted the virus was still being investigated.
As of last month, the World Health Organisation had recorded 25 human infection cases of H5N1, which caused a global health threat in 2003. The highly pathogenic strain still shows a fatality rate of 59 per cent, though decreasing from the 100 per cent in 2003 when it was first attacking humans.
The government's 'serious response level' for influenza pandemic has been activated. That means more stringent infection control measures in public hospitals, including a ban on visiting at isolation wards unless on compassionate grounds.