There's been a lot of conflicting info from China. Here is one example. A Hong Kong patient was reported to have the "bird flu" virus. China said it was Chlamydia.
Copyright 2003 South China Morning Post Ltd.
South China Morning Post (Hong Kong)
February 20, 2003
SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 2
LENGTH: 369 words
HEADLINE: We have no cases, say Fujian and Guangzhou
BYLINE: Leu Siew-ying in Guangzhou
BODY: No bird flu cases exist in Fujian province or in Guangzhou, officials in both places insisted yesterday.
Hu Shaoming, deputy chief of Guangzhou Health Bureau's administrative department, said the mystery flu which had swept through Guangdong in late January and early this month had nothing to do with the deadly avian flu virus.
"We do not have a single case of bird flu in Guangzhou," Mr Hu said. He said his bureau had not heard about the latest case in Hong Kong.
Last night, an official at the reception office of the Fujian provincial government said that it had not received any reports of an outbreak of bird flu in the province.
The official also said he was not aware of the case reported by the Hong Kong government yesterday.
The Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention in Beijing said on Tuesday that experts had found the chlamydia bacteria in two specimens taken from the lungs of two patients who died in the mystery flu outbreak in Guangdong.
The disease, which has been labelled
atypical pneumonia, has killed at least five people, including a 10-year-old boy, and infected 305. In Guangzhou, Mr Hu said 94 patients had recovered and been discharged from hospitals up to last Monday.
Xu Jun, a researcher at the Guangzhou Institute of Respiratory Diseases, said yesterday the new discovery gave doctors a lead in treating the disease, but it was too early to draw any conclusion on the cause of the illness.
"The Beijing findings are based on two autopsies. More tests need to be done," Professor Xu said.
He said the antibiotic erythromycin had proved successful in treating chlamydia pneumonia and had been used to treat some of the cases of
atypical pneumonia in Guangdong, but the effect of the drug was unclear in all cases.
Chlamydia pneumonia can also be so mild that patients sometimes do not know they are ill, Professor Xu said.
State media yesterday quoted other experts in Guangdong as saying the illness in the province could not be chlamydia pneumonia as this was a more contagious disease and has a low fatality rate.
They said there was probably more than one cause of the illness.
Additional reporting by Fong Tak-ho
LOAD-DATE: February 20, 2003