Possible Case of Human-to-Human Transmission of H5N1 Virus in China

So far, researchers and doctors have found that humans diagnosed with the bird flu virus caught it from birds. However, there are now increasing fears about human-to-human transmission of the bird flu virus, after doctors detected the virus in a Chinese man whose son had earlier died of bird flu.

Sources at the World Health Organization are claiming they could not completely rule out the possibility that the father had caught the H5N1 virus from the already infected son. This is a scenario scientists have been worried about for a while. According to them, the possibility of human-to-human transmission could mean the death of millions of people from the disease.

The news of the Chinese man’s death was posted in a statement on the website of the Chinese ministry. According to the statement, the victim was a 52-year old man living in the eastern Jiangsu province of China.

The statement n the Chinese ministry’s website said further the man, identified only by his surname Lu, had been found infected with the H5N1 virus. It further said Lu’s 24-old son had died of bird flu on 2nd December, and that doctors had detected Lu’s infection just three days later, on Wednesday.

Sources said Lu started showing classical bird flu symptoms Monday itself. The doctors confirmed Lu’s condition Wednesday. Lu is currently in a hospital, where doctors and scientists are monitoring his condition regularly. However, they have not ruled out the possibility that Lu was infected by the same source as his son, or that his infection came from a separate source altogether.

WHO officials are understandably concerned. Spokesman for the WHO, John Rainford, said they were concerned with the latest developments. He said the situation required a thorough investigation, as different scenarios currently existed about how Lu got infected by the bird flu virus.

So far, the bird flu virus has claimed 200 human victims worldwide ever since the first cases were reported towards the end of 2003. The most number of victims have been in Indonesia, where 90 people have died of the bird flu virus. However, there have been no proven cases of human-to-human transmission of the virus so far, though there have been suspected cases reported in Vietnam, Hong Kong, and also Indonesia.