Hong Kong lowers bird flu alert after first case in seven years

Dec 8, 2010, 6:10 GMT

Hong Kong - The Hong Kong government Wednesday lowered its bird flu alert level, three weeks after detecting the city's first human case of the virus in seven years.

The classification on the city's influenza pandemic response mechanism was lowered from 'serious' to 'alert' after no further signs of an outbreak were found, officials announced.

Hong Kong's bird flu alert level was raised to serious on November 17 after a 59-year-old woman was diagnosed with the H5N1 bird flu virus after returning from a holiday in China.

Tests confirmed the patient contracted the virus in China and she remained in a stable condition at Hong Kong's Princess Margaret Hospital, a spokesman for the Department of Health said.

City-wide tests on farms and wholesale markets conducted since the woman's diagnosis found no trace of the H5N1 virus anywhere else, the spokesman said.

Six people died and 12 others were infected in Hong Kong in the first modern case of bird flu to jump the species barrier in 1997, leading to a cull of millions of chickens and ducks.

Hong Kong has since prevented any further significant local outbreaks. The last case in the city involved a father who died and whose son fell ill after a visit to China in 2003.

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