Wife and two sons got dengue fever in city
The wife and two sons of a man from Deep Water Bay, who became the first person in seven years to contract dengue fever locally, have been confirmed as also having contracted the disease in Hong Kong.
When the 46-year-old Caucasian man from an estate on Island Road was confirmed as having the disease on September 22 it triggered a dengue fever alert from the Centre for Health Protection. Yesterday the centre said tests on the man's 47-year-old wife and sons, aged 18 and eight, had proved positive.
Meanwhile, a suspected case involving a two-year-old girl, a neighbour of the Island Road family, has been taken off the list.
The centre said initial blood samples collected from the girl on September 22 had tested positive but later samples taken at 22 and 28 days after the onset of symptoms had not shown any rise in dengue antibody levels.
Blood samples from the girl's mother and father, two sisters and the family's two domestic helpers also proved negative.
Since the first confirmation of the disease, the centre said it had collected information from 862 people in Deep Water Bay, as well as the ESF International Kindergarten (Hillside) and Bradbury School in Stubbs Road, where the two-year-old girl and eight-year-old boy attended. Blood samples were taken from 86 people but all proved negative.
