Parents should keep young children out of wet markets, a doctor warned yesterday, as officials confirmed a two-year-old boy who came to Hong Kong from Guangzhou nine days ago has the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus, with his condition worsening in the last 24 hours.
The Centre for Health Protection revealed the boy had visited a wet market selling live poultry in Guangzhou in May.
The boy is in serious condition in Princess Margaret Hospital's intensive care unit in Kwai Chung, where his parents are in quarantine.
Two nurses and a patient from a private clinic in Mong Kok where the boy was first treated for fever on May 26 have also been quarantined, but none has tested positive for bird flu.
Dr Ho Pak-leung, the city's leading bird flu expert and a University of Hong Kong microbiologist, said the case highlighted a gap in government efforts to prevent bird flu infections because a key group at risk - people who frequently travel between the mainland and Hong Kong - had fallen through the cracks.
'Not enough is being done for those who often visit mainland China, as they tend to belong to the under-privileged groups who have less access to information,' Ho (pictured) said.