Another case of bird flu in a Beijing child who displayed no symptoms is causing more confusion for doctors, health officials have admitted.
The 4-year-old boy tested positive for H7N9 after he was in a group of people who had contact with a 7-year-old girl confirmed as the Chinese capital’s first case of the deadly virus over the weekend.
The boy has been placed under observation by health officials to see if he displays any symptoms, with the new strain of avian flu now having killed 14 among 63 people known to have been infected.
Growing problem: A chicken slaughter employee cleans broilers at ShengHua chicken slaughter in a suburb of Shanghai, China. The H7N9 strain of bird flu was found in a 4-year-old boy in Beijing
Beijing Health Bureau deputy director Zhong Dongpo said that the boy’s case is ‘very meaningful because it shows that the disease caused by this virus has a wide scope.
‘It's not only limited to critical symptoms. There can also be slight cases, and even those who don't feel any abnormality at all. So we need to understand this disease in a rational and scientific way.’
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The boy’s neighbour was found to have bought chicken from the 7-year-old girl's family, which is how he was linked. No human-to-human spread of the virus has yet been confirmed.
Dr Leo Poon Lit-man of the University of Hong Kong said medical authorities must be on high alert and that the question of whether H7N9 can be transmitted between humans 'needs to be answered'.
Working hard: Chicken slaughter employees clean broilers at ShengHua. The new strain has killed 14 people
He told CNN: 'So far, we do not know the full spectrum of the clinical presentations of these H7N9 patients.
'They are trying enhance the surveillance so that we can detect those cases where there is only a mild infection'
Dr Leo Poon Lit-man, University of Hong Kong
'In the beginning, we were only able to detect it because there were some severe cases and some people actually died.
'They are trying enhance the surveillance so that we can detect those cases where there is only a mild infection.'
China's poultry sector has had losses of more than £1billion since reports emerged of the new bird flu strain two weeks ago, an official at the country's National Poultry Industry Association said.
Keeping on: A pigeon house employee works at XinRong dove breeding factory in a suburb of Shanghai
It is believed close contact with infected birds is a likely way of catching the virus. The confirmed death toll in China rose on Monday after a 77-year-old woman died in Jiangsu.
'It's not only limited to critical symptoms. There can also be slight cases, and even those who don't feel any abnormality at all. So we need to understand this disease in a rational and scientific way'
Zhong Dongpo, Beijing Health Bureau
An international team of flu experts will go to China this week to help with investigations into the virus, the World Health Organisation said yesterday.
‘We're still trying to find out more information about the reservoir (of the virus),’ WHO spokesman Glenn Thomas said.
‘From what we know at the moment, the poultry markets have been a focus of attention, but the fact-finding mission will be looking into this as a key target of its research.’
Troubled industry: An employee works at a poultry farm on the outskirts of Shanghai. The owner of the farm, which produces chicken eggs, says his poultry are healthy
The team includes four specialists in areas such as emerging viruses, human-to-animal flu viruses and epidemiology, as well as an unspecified number of WHO staff, the organisation said.
'There are some examples of mild cases, and also some cases of people improving, who have gone from critical to a stable condition, and that is something that will be explored'
Glenn Thomas, WHO
One of the points the mission wants to probe is how some people seem to fight off the infection.
‘There are some examples of mild cases, and also some cases of people improving, who have gone from critical to a stable condition, and that is something that will be explored,’ Mr Thomas said.
The WHO said more than 1,000 close contacts of the people confirmed as having H7N9 were being closely monitored for symptoms.