A man in China contracted bird flu because he was in close contact with his infected son, although the virus had not mutated into a form that is highly contagious among humans, authorities said Thursday.
A 52-year-old man, identified only by his surname Lu, was hospitalised with the potentially deadly H5N1 strain of the virus soon after his son died from it on December 2. Lu has since recovered.
Chinese health ministry spokesman Mao Qunan said Lu's infection was due to close contact with his son, but that the transmission was not technically "human-to-human".
"It has no biological features for human-to-human transmission," he told journalists.
Like many human cases of bird flu in China, authorities have not been able to identify the source as neither Lu nor his son had close contact with sick or dead poultry prior to infection, he said.
He refused to elaborate on the findings, which was reached by the ministry's expert group on bird flu.
Source: AFP at Breitbart.com.
The initial reports indicated that neither man had any known exposure to poultry, so the mystery remains as to where and from who or what the son got the virus and transmitted it to his father.
Chinese health ministry spokesman Mao Qunan said Lu's infection was due to close contact with his son, but that the transmission was not technically "human-to-human".
Not technically human-to-human, although it does appear that this was, in fact, a human-to-human transfer? These technicalities puzzle me.
3 comments:
"Not technically human-to-human, although it does appear that this was, in fact, a human-to-human transfer? These technicalities puzzle me."
The doublespeak is a little troubling. Just what are they saying here? Human spread or not?
(btw, some of your word verification is amusing, some are very annoying) Any way to skip it?
Sigh. No, just a quirk of blogger. I started a blog called A1A South at Wordpress to try to get around some of the issues.
Got it.Thanks........
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