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Pneumonia Death Not Caused By Bird Flu: Health Ministry

Posted on: Saturday, 29 October 2005, 09:00 CDT

Pneumonia death not caused by bird flu: Health Ministry

CHANGSHA, Oct. 28 (Xinhua) -- Health Ministry experts confirmed on Friday that a Chinese girl died of severe pneumonia in a village where a bird flu outbreak had been reported. No evidence suggested human infection in the village.

The judgement was made by a panel of experts from the Ministry of Health, who arrived in Wantang Village in central China's Hunan Province on Thursday.

Yang Weizhong, director of China Disease Control Center's (CDC) Emergency Office and head of the expert panel told Xinhua that they have sent blood sample of the girl as well as those of her brother and her mother to the CDC's headquarters for a test, which turned out negative for the avian influenza virus.

The girl, He Yin, was taken into the Hunan Provincial Paediatric Hospital on Oct. 16 where she died the next day. The hospital diagnosed her with prostration of breathing and heart failure caused by severe pneumonia.

The 12-year-old girl was a native of Wantang Village, where the latest outbreak of avian influenza was reported by the national bird flu lab several days ago.

She felt sick after eating with her brother smoke-dried chicken that died form bird flu. Her younger brother also felt sick on Oct. 17 and the hospital diagnosed his illness with symptoms of fever and cough as bronchial pneumonia.

Yang said blood tests on the nine-year-old boy and his mother also were negative for the bird flu virus, confirming the earlier results by the provincial CDC.

The boy's condition has been stable and on the way to recovery.

The ministry also confirmed that the latest outbreak in Wantang Village was identified as the deadly H5N1 avian influenza which killed 545 chickens and ducks.

Source: Xinhua News Agency - CEIS

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