The November 2003 case was two years before the October 2005 case in the Hunan Province, where a 9-year-old boy was incorrectly identified as the China's first confirmed case.
A 24-year-old Beijing man who got the bird flu three years ago died during the outbreak due to severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). The man was then diagnosed with serious pneumonia without a definitive cause. Since testing at that time revealed that he had not died of SARS, officials kept his sample for further investigation.
When a human case of avian flu was reported in Vietnam in 2004, Chinese scientists suspected that the young man who had served in the army had died of bird flu in 2003, says source from Ministry of Health (MOH).
Mao Qun'an, spokesman of MOH told the China Daily, "So far, the source of infection still remains unknown...But this confirmation offers important clues for studying the bird flu outbreak."
Roy Wadia, spokesman for the Beijing Office of the WHO told the China Daily, "[It was thought that] many other countries had human cases beginning in late 2003 and early 2004, but not China...This case now means that China has the first human case in the current H5N1 cycle, which began in late 2003."
Wadia said, "The case in November 2003 shows us once again that whenever H5N1 virus is in the environment, it is possible for humans to get infected and humans do get infected...It shows us that H5N1 has been in the environment on the Chinese mainland for quite some time now."
