Baby girl hospitalized in Hong Kong with mild form of bird flu

Dec 30, 2008, 11:19 GMT

Hong Kong - A two-month-old baby girl in Hong Kong was in hospital Tuesday after being diagnosed with a mild form of the bird flu virus.

The infant, who normally lives in Shenzhen in southern China, was diagnosed with the H9N2 strain of bird flu after being admitted to hospital this week with a cough, runny nose and vomiting.

The controller of Hong Kong's Centre for Health Protection, Thomas Tang, said the H9N2 strain of bird flu was different from the deadly H5N1 strain which has killed hundreds of people.

'The clinical symptoms (with H9N2) are normally milder (than H5N1),' he told a press conference. 'We have had four cases in the past 10 years and they all had mild respiratory symptoms and they all recovered.'

The H9N2 virus was widespread among chickens and geese in the south China area, Tang said. The baby girl was Tuesday in a stable condition in hospital, he added.

News of the baby girl's sickness came on the day live chicken imports from China resumed in Hong Kong after a three-week ban following an outbreak of bird flu.

Some 75,000 chickens were culled at a farm in the Yuen Long district in early December when the outbreak of the deadly virus was detected in 200 dead birds and also at a nearby wholesale market.

The deaths were caused by the H5N1 strain of the virus that jumps more easily from chickens to humans and has been responsible for 246 deaths worldwide since 2003, according to World Health Organization statistics.

Six people died and 12 others were infected in an outbreak of bird flu in Hong Kong in 1997 that led to the culling of 1.2 million birds. Millions more birds were slaughtered in outbreaks in 2001 and 2002.

Experts have repeatedly warned that the H5N1 strain of bird flu threatens a global pandemic if it mutates into a form that is more easily transmitted between humans.