A 19-year-old Chinese soldier has been hospitalized with the H5N1 bird flu strain, the Chinese Health Ministry reported in a statement.
The soldier Cheng was hospitalized lasr week on May_14, five days after suffering a fever and cough.
Test results obtained by local health authorities on May 18 found the soldier had the H5N1 bird flu strain, and that was confirmed May 23 in a test performed by national authorities of China.
As of 2006, “avian flu” is being commonly used to refer to infection from a particular subtype of Influenza A virus, H5N1, which can cause severe illness in humans who are infected. Currently, this strain is transmitted by contact with infected birds, and has been transmitted from one person to another only in a few cases. H5N1 flu is therefore not pandemic now and is not currently capable of causing a pandemic. Only if H5N1 mutates into a form that can be readily transmitted from one person to another could it cause a pandemic.
There is no highly effective treatment for H5N1 flu, but oseltamivir (commercially marketed by Roche as Tamiflu), can sometimes inhibit the influenza virus from spreading inside the user’s body. This drug has become a focus for some governments and organizations trying to be seen as making preparations for a possible H5N1 pandemic.