North China's bird flu patient transferred

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-01-19 09:20

TAIYUAN - The two-year-old female bird flu patient in north China's Shanxi Province had been transferred to another local hospital and no more people had been reported infected, said local authorities on Sunday.

The patient surnamed Peng had been transferred to the Fourth People's Hospital in Taiyuan, the provincial capital, from the Shanxi Children's Hospital, said an official of the provincial health bureau.

As of Sunday noon, the patient had been in critical condition. Doctors had been trying to bring the virus under control, the official said.

The 67 people who had close contact with the patient had been under observation but no one was found infected, the official said.

The girl was confirmed to be infected with bird flu virus H5N1 on Saturday by the experts from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention and the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences.

The girl was found ill on January 7 in central Hunan Province. Her grandparents took her to Luliang City of Shanxi on January 11. She was taken to the Fenyang Hospital on Wednesday and then to the Shanxi Children's Hospital on Wednesday night after she got worse.

A 19-year-old woman named Huang Yanqing infected with bird flu and died in Beijing on January 5.

Huang, a native of eastern Fujian Province, was the first human bird flu case reported in Beijing since 2003, according to the municipal health bureau.