China Confirms First Human Infected With Bird Flu In 2003

China Travel Services

China on Tuesday said a man who died in 2003 was infected with H5N1 avian influenza, making him the earliest human known to have been infected with the virus.

The health ministry confirmed the presence of the virus through "paralley laboratory tests, which were carried out in cooperation with the World Health Organization", the official Xinhua news agency said.

The WHO requested an investigation after Chinese scientists claimed in June that the 24-year-old man was infected with bird flu in November 2003, two years before the government reported any cases.

In a letter printed in the New England Journal of Medicine, the eight scientists said the man died four days after being admitted to hospital, and was misdiagnosed as having severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).

The WHO said the case raised "long-running questions" about the internal communication in the Chinese government as well as the time frames for reporting an infection. The Chinese experts said they found the genetics of the flu virus was similar to that circulating in chickens in China in 2004.

The H5N1 virus was first discovered in poultry in 1996 in China, which has reported dozens of new cases of H5N1 in wild birds and poultry in the last two years.

Chinese authorities reported the first case of human infection with H5N1 in November 2005. The infection of the man in 2003 is not a surprise to observers since three human cases of bird flu were reported in Hong Kong after they returned from Fujian province in February 2003.

The cause of their infection, which was eclipsed by the outbreak of SARS, was never determined. China had previously recorded 19 human infections and 12 deaths from H5N1 bird flu, though some experts believe that many more cases may have gone undetected.

The WHO had recorded 233 human infections with bird flu worldwide, including 135 deaths, by August 7.