16th local dengue fever case in Hong Kong, second on tourist island of Cheung Chau
Centre for Health Protection apologises for earlier error which led it to say there was probably more than one source of infection on island
Hong Kong health authorities apologised on Monday for a laboratory mistake which led them to disclose a day earlier that there might have been more than one source of infection on an outlying island, as the city’s dengue fever outbreak escalated.
The Centre for Health Protection had said test results showed a 52-year-old man living on Cheung Chau was infected with serotype 3 of the potentially lethal virus, as opposed to serotype 1, which had afflicted the 15 other local cases.
The centre said on Sunday it was likely that the man had contracted the disease on the island. That it was a different kind to the one in the case of an 84-year-old woman also on Cheung Chau led them to believe the island might have more than one source of infection.
But on Monday the centre said the man had actually contracted serotype 1, and that the two cases on the island probably shared the same source.
The error was found in genetic sequencing which showed that the virus infecting the man was “highly similar to” that of the woman.
The man in the latest case lives on Tsan Tuen Road on the island, a popular tourist destination, and works in Lai Chi Kok. He fell ill last Wednesday and had been recovering at home. The patient had travelled to Dongguan in Guangdong province for a day trip during the incubation period of the virus, which can be spread by mosquitoes.