Double bout of flu killed boy, 7, inquest told
The immune system of a boy who died in March could have been weakened by flu, making him more susceptible when he contracted a second strain a week later, an inquest heard yesterday.
Law Ho-ming died age seven on March 11 of an acute brain inflammation, weeks after the death of two other children, aged two and three, who also experienced flu-like symptoms. The government shut schools as the deaths led to fears of an infectious outbreak.
Tests indicated the boy had contracted the H3N2 flu strain before the H1N1 strain, and the latter was the main cause of the inflammation that led to his death. 'The first flu could have made the body's immunity weaker than usual,' Lui Ying-shun, a doctor from Tuen Mun Hospital's department of paediatrics where the boy was treated, told the inquest.
'Very unfortunately, Ho-ming was infected with the H3N2 strain around February 24 to 28, and about a week later he was infected with the second strain, H1N1,' she said.
Pathologist Chu Sin-chuen determined yesterday that acute necrotising encephalopathy - a disease characterised by brain lesions, fever, a rapid deterioration of consciousness and high mortality - was the direct cause of the boy's death, and that flu was the indirect cause.
The boy's mother, Kwong Fung-ming, told the inquest that she took her son to a private practitioner several times between February 24 and 28, after the boy developed a cough and headache. When he developed a fever on March 6, she took him to the hospital.
Dr Lui said doctors suspected that symptoms in the February episode resulted from the H3N2 strain, and those in March from H1N1.
Lau Hong-ki, a doctor at the hospital's emergency room, said that when the boy arrived on March 6 she found he had a low fever, but a chest X-ray showed his lungs were clear. So she prescribed at least five days' worth of nose, throat, cough and fever medicine and discharged him on March 7.
Ms Kwong, visibly emotional in court, said she took her son to the hospital again the next day after consulting the private practitioner, who suspected meningitis.
Hospital doctors found indications of meningitis and brain swelling, Dr Lui said. They diagnosed acute necrotising encephalopathy.
By March 10, scans showed the infection was spreading throughout the boy's brain.
At about 3pm, Ms Kwong said, 'the doctor said his brain was dead'.
The next day, the boy's heart stopped and doctors pronounced him dead.
The inquest, which has heard evidence about all three children's deaths, continues today.
