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China says boy has bird flu antibodies

Posted on: Wednesday, 16 November 2005, 05:36 CST

BEIJING (Reuters) - A senior Chinese official has been quoted as saying bird flu antibodies were detected in a 9-year-old boy in Hunan province, strongly suggesting he could become China's first human bird flu infection.

China's health ministry said on Wednesday it had not yet reached a final conclusion on the case.

The semi-official China News Service, quoting Qi Xiaoqiu, director of the Ministry of Health's department of disease control, said the government was waiting for the results of a joint investigation with the World Health Organization before confirming whether the boy was the first human case of avian influenza in the country.

The agency did not say which strain of bird flu the boy had tested positive for.

He Junyao and his 12-year-old sister fell ill last month and were treated for pneumonia symptoms. The boy was discharged from hospital last weekend but his sister died.

Chinese officials said initial tests showed she had tested negative for bird flu, but the siblings lived close to the site of a poultry outbreak.

"During the early stage, antibodies were not found, but now the boy is positive to antibody tests," the China News Service quoted Qi as saying.

"We are waiting for the advice of the WHO. The WHO has a set of procedures to confirm a case and it usually takes two laboratories to confirm."

The WHO said that while it was still awaiting confirmation one way or the other, the presence of antibodies did suggest the possibility of human bird flu infection.

"Because the formal investigative process is still under way, we are not issuing a formal conclusion right now, we are just saying that it is very probably that it will be declared as such," said Roy Wadia, WHO spokesman in Beijing.

"If it does turn out conclusively that he is H5N1, we would not be surprised," he added, referring to a strain deadly to humans.

The health ministry said it believed Qi was referring to a positive test for the H5 strain which was announced earlier in the month.

"We cannot rule out the boy will test positive for the H5N1 strain later," a spokesman said.

The WHO is sending a team this week to the southern province of Hunan to investigate the cases, which China later said could not be ruled out as bird flu.

Results on the tests being carried out by the WHO in Hunan could be released next week, or sooner, Wadia said.

The H5N1 virus has killed more than 60 people elsewhere in Asia since 2003 and is endemic is poultry flocks in many parts of the region. Almost all of those who died had been in close contact with infected birds.

China is also probing a possible human infection in a northeastern province.

To help farmers affected by the mass culling of millions of birds, China's State Council, or cabinet, will refund value added tax on all poultry products until the middle of next year, the official Xinhua news agency said.

Source: REUTERS

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