The virus reponsible for the deadly Hong Kong "chicken flu" apparently jumped directly from an infected bird to its first human casualty, a 3-year-old boy who died of the disease last May.
In the February 14 Lancet, researchers from the World Health Organization's National Influenza Centre at Erasmus University in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, reported that the human virus, called A/HK/156/97, was so genetically similar to an avian virus that had killed thousands of chickens in Hong Kong last year that direct transmission was likely.
The researchers noted that the case was the first in which an avian influenza virus was isolated from a respiratory infection in a human being.
In the same issue of Lancet, researchers at the University of Hong Kong reported that of the first 12 patients diagnosed as having the infection, all had respiratory tract symptoms typical of influenza. However, those whose illnesses . . . [Full Text of this Article]
