China says bird flu boy in critical condition

A six-year-old Chinese boy who contracted bird flu late last month is in a critical condition, state media reported today.

Doctors were racing to save the life of the boy, the country’s eighth confirmed human infection, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

China yesterday confirmed the boy, surnamed Ouyang, had contracted the H5N1 virus and said he was in a stable condition at the Hunan Provincial Children’s Hospital, in central China.

But by today, both the boy’s lungs were showing damage, Xinhua said quoting Zhu Yimin, president of the children’s hospital.

Ouyang became the country’s eighth human victim of bird flu after showing signs of a fever and pneumonia on December 24, Xinhua said. An investigation found that poultry raised by the boy’s family at their home in Hunan province’s Guiyang county had died before the boy fell ill.

Xinhua said 152 people who had been in close contact with Ouyang were under strict medical observation, but so far none had shown “abnormal clinical symptoms”.