Hong Kong has recorded its first confirmed case of avian flu, or H5N1, in seven years, after a 59-year-old local woman fell ill and underwent testing. The woman was reported in serious condition in Tuen Mun Hospital. Doctors noted the woman has symptoms of pneumonia and late Wednesday evening she was transferred to the intensive care unit at Princess Margaret Hospital.

The case is believed to have been imported, since the woman had traveled to Shanghai, Hangzhou and Nanjing recently. Apart from elevating the avian alert level to "serious", the government will inform the World Health Organization of the case and call an inter-departmental meeting today to follow up the matter.

Secretary for Food and Health York Chow, together with Thomas Tsang, controller of the Centre for Health Protection, briefed the media late in the evening Wednesday and confirmed the case. As traced, the woman had visited several mainland cities between October 23 and November 1, and had stayed at the home of her relatives in Shanghai. She had visited local markets before returning to Hong Kong on November 1. She fell ill four days later and sought medical attention from Tuen Mun Hospital. She was hospitalized on November 14.

Officials say that because the woman had visited so many places, it is hard to trace the origin and obtain samples for examination. A daily clearance of live chickens at Hong Kong markets has been adopted, Chow said.

"There stands a greater chance that this is an imported case because she developed symptoms a day after coming back to Hong Kong, but we do not rule out the possibility of local infection," he said.

Among other things, the government will raise the alert level by enhancing cleaning of markets, wholesale markets, as well as monitoring the movement of seasonal birds and inspection of dead birds as winter approaches.

Tsang added that since the victim had spent considerable time on the mainland, the government would liaise with mainland authorities to obtain more details. Since the woman's husband and daughter who accompanied her on the trip, as well as five patients staying in the same ward at Tuen Mun Hospital, have shown no symptoms of H5N1, there is no concern over the possibility of person-to-person infection at present.

Ho Pak-leung, director of the Research Centre of Infection and Immunology at the University of Hong Kong, also believes the case is likely imported since no avian flu has occurred in Hong Kong for many years. Given there is no reported massive outbreak on the mainland, he believed this is only an isolated case. Right now, he said there is no need to change the daily live chicken clearance policy or destroy chicken living on farms.

China Daily

(HK Edition 11/18/2010 page1)