Chinese Man Survives H5N1 After 20 Days Of Treatment

A 52 year old Jiangsu man, Lu, lost his son to the bird flu virus in early November. Lu developed a fever shortly after his son died, and it was confirmed he too had become infected with H5N1.

But after 20 days of treatment, Lu recovered and was discharged from a hospital into the care of his family :

Lu's son died on Nov. 2, a couple of days after being diagnosed with "lower left lobe pneumonia" in Nanjing, the capital of Jiangsu. He was the 17th Chinese to die of avian flu since 2003.

He was said to have had no contact with dead poultry and the Jiangsu Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Bureau said no bird flu epidemic had been discovered in the province.

China's health authorities previously said that no human-to-human transmission had been confirmed in the two human cases of bird flu and the means of transmission in these cases, involving the two family members in the Nanjing area, remained unknown.

As with all human bird flu cases in China, details are thin.