It now appears that the incident (father and son contracting H5N1) can be explained away based upon (a) the father and son having eaten an undercooked chicken and (b) the son having a weakened immune system (he was taking shots for a rabies exposure) so that he was the first to show symptoms.
Date: Mon 10 Dec 2007
Source: Singtaonet.com [in Chinese, trans. Rappt.DS, edited] <http://www.singtaonet.com/society_focus/200712/t20071210_688120.html>
[The following report provides new information relating to the source of the H5N1 virus responsible for the death on 2 Dec 2007 of a 24-year-old man in Jiangsu province and the concurrent illness of his father, and explains the possible relevance of the dog-bite incident.
- - Mod.CP]
To celebrate [the 24-year-old's] acceptance [to a school of continuing education], his mother and father took him and his girlfriend to Nanjing's most bustling Confucian temple for some fun. At the temple's restaurant, the 4 of them ate Beggar's Chicken, which was surrounded by thick mud on the outside. [Dan Silver, the translator, comments that a 1990 article from the New York Times provides a useful introduction to Beggar's Chicken:
<http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CEFD91638F93BA35757C0A966958260>.]
According to analyses, perhaps because the mud on the outside was too thick the chicken inside was not thoroughly cooked. On the 2nd day after eating the chicken, [the young man] began feeling feverish. His body temperature rose quickly and he was taken for emergency treatment to Jiangsu Provincial People's Hospital. In the end, he could not be saved.
As to why [he] was 1st to fall ill, a relative revealed that his girlfriend keeps 2 pet dogs. Because she is from another part of China, Nanjing limits the number of dogs [she can keep]. To avoid discovery, she sent one to be looked after by [her boyfriend]. 20 days before eating chicken, he was bitten by this small dog. To prevent rabies, he began vaccine shots. 5 injections are needed and at the time [of his illness] he had already completed 4 shots. His body's immunity was [therefore] at its lowest point. When [the man] was 1st sent to the hospital, he was not treated for avian influenza. The physicians suspected he might have contracted plague.
After their son's sudden death, his father and mother were devastated.
On the 6th day after eating chicken, when the father developed fever, he did not have the heart to seek treatment. Only after others begged him did he go to the hospital. A relative said that [his] family loves to eat chicken and his refrigerator is full of butchered chicken.
Because of this, the relative began to wonder if it might be avian influenza, so [the man] went to the Nanjing Municipal Infectious Disease Hospital where the diagnosis of avian influenza was made.
The odd thing is that although 4 people went to eat chicken [at the temple], only the 2 men fell ill and the 2 women are well. Reports say that [the] girlfriend ate a lot of chicken but is perfectly fine.
Sources say that [the 24-year-old's mother] also has no similar symptoms but has been isolated for observation. Her cell phone is turned off and there is no contact with the outside world.
- --
Communicated by:
ProMED-mail Rapporteur Dan Silver
[This exposure of father and son to the same poultry product (and possibly the storage of refrigerated chicken in the father's house) identifies a potential common source of infection and virtually negates the possibility of human-to-human transmission being responsible for these 2 cases. - Mod.CP
The possible relevance of the dog-bite incident is that 4 rabies vaccine shots might have adversely affected the patient's immune system. The 2 women who also ate the chicken should be checked for antibody in case of asymptomatic infection. Or perhaps the men ate the legs and thighs and the women the breast, with different degrees of undercooking and/or original virus titer? - Mod.JW] |
