Killer disease points to pigs

2005-07-25 12:06

Beijing - China has denied a mysterious disease that has killed at least 17 people in Sichuan province is Sars or bird flu and said it was likely a bacteria spread among pigs, state media reported.

"I can assure you that the disease is absolutely not Sars (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome), anthrax or bird flu," Zeng Huajin, a senior official with the Sichuan health department, told China Daily.

He said the disease was "probably" caused by streptococcus suis, a bacteria usually spread among pigs.

Initial investigations found that some 20 farm workers from dozens of towns and villages in Jianyang city and Ziyang city had handled sick or dead pigs and sheep before coming down with high fever, nausea, vomiting and haemorrhaging.

More cases were reported as health workers began to search villages for the sick, it said.

Suspected

As of Saturday, 58 people were suspected to have caught the disease in the neighbouring cities of Ziyang and Neijiang, according to a statement from the Sichuan health department quoted in the newspaper. At least 17 have died.

Two of the victims have since been released from hospital while 27 of them are recovering, the statement said, without giving the conditions of the rest.

Xinhua earlier reported that 12 were in critical condition.

The health department statement said the victims were from 49 villages in Sichuan and were not related to each other.

Zeng said the disease could not spread among humans, and normally only those with a weak immune system became ill.

Assist

The health and agriculture ministries last week sent a special team to Sichuan to assist in the investigation, treatment and control of the outbreak.

Despite the outbreak's mysterious nature, the World Health Organisation said there was no sign of a massive outbreak of the unknown disease.

In Hong Kong, Health Secretary York Chow said his Chinese counterparts had notified him of a "widespread infection" and that swine streptococcus bacteria, not often transmitted to human beings, was believed to be the cause.

The city's two main supermarkets suspended sales of frozen pork from Sichuan.

- AFP