More local cases of dengue fever are likely, authorities warn
Second case in nine days confirmed; both said to have originated at an MTR construction site
More locally contracted cases of dengue fever are likely, health authorities warned, after the second case in nine days was confirmed yesterday.
The two men were the first patients to contract the mosquito-borne disease in Hong Kong in four years.
Both cases are thought to have originated at a construction site for the Sai Ying Pun MTR station where the two worked.
The Centre for Health Protection believes the men - a 25-year-old Wong Tai Sin resident whose infection was confirmed yesterday, and a 63-year-old Sha Tin man diagnosed on October 25 - were bitten by the Aedes albopictus mosquito at the site on the corner of Eastern Street and Queen's Road West.
"[The mosquito] usually bites two to three people at a time … so there should be more than one or two people infected," centre controller Dr Leung Ting-hung said.
Leung said the man in the latest case, who lived on Po Kong Village Road, developed symptoms on October 27 and went to Baptist Hospital in Kowloon Tong on Sunday. His sample tested positive for dengue yesterday.