Bird flu virus not major human threat yet - scientists
Date: 24-Feb-03
Country: CHINA
A 33-year-old Hong Kong man died on Monday of pneumonia and doctors confirmed he contracted the virus H5N1 after visiting relatives who keep chickens in China's Fujian province. His son was also infected and is in stable condition in a Hong Kong hospital.
They were the first cases of bird flu passing to humans since since an outbreak in Hong Kong killed six people in 1997, triggering worldwide alarm.
A leading microbiologist in Hong Kong said the virus could only cause a pandemic if it gets mixed up with human flu strains.
"Avian flu viruses can be passed from human to human but with very low efficiency," said Paul Chan, a professor at the Chinese University in Hong Kong.
"If a person contracts both human flu and bird flu during this peak flu season, that may result in the two sharing their genetic information and emerging into a new strain with the ability to jump very efficiently from human to human.
"If that happens, it will be an emergence of a pandemic, something we don't want to see," Chan told Reuters.