Delay in identifying 1st bird flu case explained
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2006-08-11 06:58 Top Chinese health
officials have blamed a lack of communication between researchers and health
officials for the delay in confirming the mainland's first human case of bird
flu.
"This incident exposes problems in our scientific research institutes," Vice
Health Minister Jiang Zuojun said yesterday.
Comments by Jiang and other officials followed confirmation on Tuesday by the
Ministry of Health that the country's first human case of H5N1 bird flu occurred
in November 2003, two years earlier than previously thought.
Research institutes were not required to report infectious diseases until
December 2004, when the law on prevention and control of infectious diseases was
revised to include bird flu as a disease that must be reported, Jiang said.
"In the future, scientific research institutes must improve communication and
contact with our disease prevention organizations," he said.
Jiang pointed out that it took time for researchers to identify the disease
in 2003 during the SARS outbreak when diagnosis methods for emerging diseases
were poor.
They had to be cautious in the DNA sequencing and epidemiological and genetic
studies of the virus, he said. Jiang gave assurances that it was the only case
that failed to fit the symptoms of SARS, adding they had no evidence of other
bird flu cases before 2003.
The ministry's confirmation on Tuesday followed a letter published by eight
Chinese scientists in the June 22 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine
saying the virus had been isolated in a 24-year-old man who died in Beijing in
2003.
The man, surnamed Shi, became ill with pneumonia and a respiratory illness
and died four days after being hospitalized. Attention at the time was focused
on SARS. The man was misdiagnosed with SARS.
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