Late Bird Flu Report A Communication Problem - China

According to this article, communication problems were the reason for China’s two-and-a-half year delay in reporting the country’s first human case of avian influenza. China has admitted that a 24 year-old soldier based in Beijing had contracted avian flu in November 2003, two years earlier than the government had originally said that the first case had occurred. This admission comes as a result of a letter that Chinese researchers published the New England Journal of Medicine in June 2006, detailing the reasons behind the soldiers’ death.

The World Health Organization (WHO) said that the soldier was the first confirmed case in the world’s present H5N1 outbreak, preceding a case in Vietnam. The issue has exposed problems in China’s scientific research organisations, and has prompted the United Nations’ health agency to call for greater transparency in reporting. The case has also prompted questions about the existence of additional cases of the virus in China prior to 2003.