News ban for Guangzhou's suspected second bird flu case, sources say
A suspected second human case of bird flu has emerged in Guangzhou but authorities have imposed a news ban on reporting the case, sources said yesterday.
A source at the Guangzhou No 1 People's Hospital said a 41-year-old woman, identified as Ms Li, was admitted on March 25 with unexplained pneumonia. The source said experts confirmed two days later that Ms Li had the H5N1 virus but the case had yet to be reported by official media. The woman lived in the Xihua area of Guangzhou's Yuexiu district.
Aphaluck Bhatiasevi, the World Health Organisation's China spokeswoman, said the WHO was informed of the case by the Ministry of Health on March 30.
'Right now, she is not a confirmed case of H5N1. She is considered to have pneumonia of an unknown cause,' she said.
It is not known if the woman, who worked in a market, had come into contact with poultry before contracting the disease. 'She sells vegetables in a public market and her stand is not too far, about 20 metres away, from the livestock area,' Ms Bhatiasevi said.
The WHO was told tests on the woman for the virus showed negative, but the hospital was conducting further tests. Ms Bhatiasevi said the woman was now recovering and in stable condition.
A spokeswoman for Hong Kong's Health Department refused to confirm if the department had been notified of the case by Beijing.
Guangdong Health Department spokesman Feng Shaomin said yesterday the department had not been notified about the case and knew nothing about it.
'We reported to Hong Kong on April 6 a serious pneumonia case involving a nine-year-old boy at the Guangzhou Children's Hospital. But no new human bird flu case has appeared again,' Mr Feng said.
If officially confirmed, Ms Li would be the third human bird flu case in a major mainland city.
Local media sources said outlets were told not to cover bird flu cases, and to wait for a final and official statement from the government.
Last month, a female migrant worker, aged 29, died from the H5N1 virus after buying live chickens at a Shanghai market. And Guangzhou resident Lao Qiliang , 32, died from bird flu on February 2. He was reportedly a frequent visitor to live poultry stalls at wet markets.
Meanwhile, Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food York Chow Yat-ngok said the local poultry industry could survive despite a government plan to phase out pig farming.
He said on an RTHK programme it was not the government's policy for Hong Kong to rely totally on food imports.
