Proof that bird flu killed man in Hong Kong prompts alarm

Doctors confirmed yesterday that a man who died of a viral illness in Hong Kong last Sunday had been suffering from "bird flu", in the first known fatality from the disease since 1997.

Health authorities in Hong Kong urged people to stay calm amid fears that the outbreak, thought to be caused by the transmission of the virus from chickens, could be the beginning of a pandemic.

The man's nine-year-old son is in hospital with the rare strain of flu, A(H5N1). One of hisdaughters died last month and his wife fell ill.

The World Health Organisation alerted its global influenza surveillance network and warned on Wednesday that the outbreak was "potentially very serious" if the virus was proved to have spread from person to person.

Yesterday, a spokesman for WHO said new information suggested this was unlikely because medical workers who had been in contact with the family had not been infected.

The spokesman said: "Occasionally bird flu escapes into humans but we have never seen a case transmit from human to human. It would be of utmost concern if it did." As news of the infection spread, some of the family's neighbours donned surgical masks and cleaners disinfected their apartment building.

Yeoh Eng-kiong, the Health Minister, urged residents to stay calm. "The source is direct from poultry, not from humans, so there should be no alarm." Officials have advised people to wash their hands after contact with chickens and to tell doctors if they have been in contact with poultry.

In 1997, the first known outbreak of A(H5N1) in humans infected 18 people and caused six deaths, leading to the slaughter of Hong Kong's 1.4 million chickens. This time, the authorities have killed nearly 20,000 chickens and other poultry since December.