skip to the content

header

Flu in the news

Influenza World brings you the latest news and updates in the flu field from around the world.

 
China defends bird flu vaccination plan despite deaths
06 February 2009

By Lucy Hornby

BEIJING (Reuters) - China's Ministry of Agriculture on Friday defended its bird flu vaccination program, stating there had been no outbreaks since last June despite a number of human cases, some fatal, this year.

Human cases and the appearance of dead wild birds in Hong Kong have caused some experts and media reports to question whether the virus is widespread but undetected in China.

Five people died of bird flu in China in January, in regions far removed from each other and in which there were no reported cases of bird flu in birds. Three others have become ill, of which two have recovered, a toddler infected in Hunan and a young man in Guizhou.

Apart from the discovery of a case during routine sampling in eastern China's Jiangsu province in December, Chinese testing has not detected any bird flu since June.

The Ministry of Agriculture said in a report on its web site that the strain found in Jiangsu was a variant, requiring the modification of the vaccine program in the surrounding provinces of Zhejiang, Shanghai, Anhui and Shandong.

Meanwhile, two ducks and a goose found in Hong Kong have tested positive for H5N1, the strain of bird flu that can infect humans. Hong Kong closed its Mai Po nature preserve as a precaution for 21 days from Friday, after a dead grey heron found there also tested positive for bird flu.

Hong Kong authorities are still testing 14 other dead birds found last week on Lantau Island.

"We're checking water currents" to see if the birds were washed ashore from mainland China, a government spokeswoman said.

While H5N1 rarely infects people, experts fear it could mutate into a form that people could easily pass to one another, sparking a pandemic that could kill tens of millions and topple the global economy.

China has vaccinated aggressively since bird flu first reappeared among humans in Asia in 2003. But vaccination does not eliminate the virus.

In 2008, China reported six outbreaks of bird flu that killed 9,000 birds and led to the culling of 590,000 birds.

  • "I would describe flu as something that makes you feel very, very ill. You get a headache, aching bones, and are generally fed up"
  • "When I get flu symptoms I feel like a train has run over me"
  • "I felt very sick and, during the first week, I had high temperature. Flu was very different to a cold. I went back to work after two and a half weeks. Then I suffered a setback for another week"
  • "I run a guesthouse; flu would be a real pest for me. I couldn’t cook, I shouldn’t cook, and I wouldn’t cook, so I would need to get a lot of extra help in. It would cost me a lot more money. So flu’s a real problem, a right downturn"
  • "I work on my own and when I can’t work, I have to try not to infect my little children, so they avoid getting the flu as well"
  • "I feel a little numb, like I’m in another dimension. Because in general I have sore throat, headache, I feel all clogged-up. Usually a sensation like I’m floating in the air"
  • "Shivers, sweats, makes you ache. Last time I had flu I was off for two weeks"
  • "I think that I would probably be concerned that I would pass flu onto my children, who might not be able to deal with it as well as I would"
  • "Flu makes you feel like you’ve been hit over the head with a baseball bat. You don’t feel like you can get yourself out of bed as all your energy is drawn from you"
  • "I was incapable of working. It just wasn’t possible at all… and my flu dragged on for more than a week"
  • "I have no strength. It annoys me because I can do nothing, it seems like I’m wasting my time"
  • "Flu’s like being hit by a truck because you feel completely gone. There is no energy left in your body. You are suffering from high temperature. You’re sweating a lot and you feel really unwell"
  • "First of all infinite tiredness, then I feel like sleeping and don’t want to eat"
  • "I felt really miserable because my muscles and my bones were aching. Well, I can hardly describe it, I just felt really awful, absolutely miserable"
  • "It’s like there’s something huge treading on your head, like a deafening noise that destroys the eardrums"
  • "The fever was constantly rising – I immediately measured my temperature as soon as I got home. It was 41°C and it kept rising and I was wondering what’s going on. I was really scared! Everything was hurting and it all happened so fast. Flu came out of the blue"
  • "I always feel like my limbs have iron weights tied to them and I’m going to fall over any minute, a really stuffy runny nose and feel antisocial"
  • "I was totally dependent on others! I was incapable of doing anything at all"
  • "The real flu knocks you for six – you just don’t want to move or do anything. It’s not very nice"
  • "Not being able to go to work. Not being able to do the things I have to do at home and the commitments that I have day by day"