Soldier's illness not bird flu: KCDC
10-MAY-2008 Intellasia | Joong Ang
May 10, 2008 - 7:00:00 AM
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The Korea Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said yesterday that a 22-year-old soldier hospitalised after helping with the slaughter of suspected bird-flu infected poultry, has tested negative for the deadly H5N1 strain of the virus.
He was infected with the H5 strain, it said, but did not develop symptoms because the virus's presence was weak.
Centre officials said Wednesday in a statement that the soldier, identified only by the last name Cho, had suffered from bacterial pneumonia, not avian influenza, known as bird flu.
On April 21, the soldier was coughing and had a high fever after participating in the culling of birds, leading to his hospitalisation.
Inspectors at the centre said yesterday that even though initial examinations detected a small amount of the H5 virus in the patient's body, including the HA gene that indicates the presence of the virus, they could not find any indicators of the highly contagious H5N1 strain-the HA and NA genes-after more detailed tests. H5N1 is one of four strains of the virus that affects humans.
"We think that the H5 virus in the patient's body was unstable," said Lee Joo-yeon, an inspector at the centre. It was too weak to prompt the symptoms of bird flu. Also, he did not have the N1 strain of the virus.
Inspectors participating in the tests said that human cases of avian influenza are confirmed when the H5 virus, including the HA gene, and the N1 strain, including the NA gene, are all detected, under the guidelines of the World Health Organisation.
"We had to do detailed tests because the soldier tested positive for the H5 virus on the initial test," Lee said. "To verify whether or not the virus was H5N1, we needed several tests and a few weeks."
Meanwhile, the soldier has fully recovered and will soon return to his military unit. He is still in the Armed Forces Capital Hospital in Bundang District, Seongnam, just south of Seoul.
"He will be given permission to leave the hospital by his physician," said a hospital official who declined to be named. "Even though his condition has already gone back to normal, we had to wait for the final result from the national centre."
According to the World Health Organisation, more than 230 people in the world have been killed by the H5N1 strain of bird flu since late 2003. There have been no confirmed human cases of H5N1 in Korea.
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