Chinese man dies of highly virulent strain of H5N1 flu

December 31, 2011 – CHINA – A 39-year-old man in southern China died Saturday from what appears to be a contagious strain of avian flu, state media reported Saturday. The man — identified by Xinhua as a bus driver with the surname Chen — was hospitalized in Shenzhen on December 21 as he battled a fever. He tested positive for the H5N1 avian influenza virus, the provincial health department said in a statement, according to the official news agency. The man had not traveled out of the city of Shenzhen, nor did he have direct contact with poultry in the month before he came down with the fever, according to the department. Shenzhen borders Hong Kong, where more than 17,000 chickens were ordered culled on the same day that Chen was hospitalized. That decision came after a chicken carcass tested positive for avian flu. –CNN

Update, Jan. 1, 2012: The 39-year-old Chinese man, identified only by his family name, Chen, died of multiple organ failure on Saturday – a week after being admitted to hospital with pneumonia in the southern industrial city of Shenzhen, located just across the border from Hong Kong. “We discovered he had taken five days’ leave before he fell sick. He went jogging every morning in an area where there are many migratory birds,” said Chinese Health Ministry official He Jianfeng. The medical team are now probing whether Mr. Chen, a bus driver, contracted the deadly H5N1avian flu strain from the wintering wild flocks or via their droppings during his regular morning jogs through the Waterlands Resort wetland park. He had had no direct contact with poultry – the source of most bird-to-human contagion – and had not travelled in the past month, Mr. He said. Mr. Chen is the first fatal case of the H5N1 virus in China in 18 months. But his death has put the world’s most populous country and the rest of the region on high alert. The H5N1 virus, which kills 60 per cent of those infected when it jumps species, has killed 332 people worldwide since 2003, according to WHO figures. –Telegraph