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A spokesman for the Centre for Health Protection (CHP) of the Department of Health today (September 4) said the Centre had received one report involving a child death notified through the paediatric surveillance programme (PSP) set up by the CHP with private and public hospitals.
Since the PSP was set up in March 2008, it has recorded seven child death reports involving various infective conditions, excluding the present report. Statistics gathered from death certificates indicated that in previous years, a baseline average of 15 - 20 children aged nine years or below died from primary infective causes in Hong Kong each year.
The last two recorded child deaths under the PSP were an 11-month- old child with EV71 infected outside Hong Kong (onset August 29), and a three-year-old Pakistani child living locally with suspected sepsis and encephalopathy (onset August 8).
The new report involved a six-year-old girl who developed fever, abdominal pain, headache and vomiting on September 1 and attended the Accident and Emergency Department of Pamela Youde Nethersole Eastern Hospital (PYNEH) on September 2. She was discharged after treatment.
The girl sought medical treatment from a private doctor on September 3 and was taken to PYNEH in the evening. She passed away on the same day. She had spent time in both Guangdong province and Hong Kong in August.
Investigations are in progress to ascertain whether the girl died from an infective or a non-infective cause. Initial laboratory tests on the girl¡¦s nasopharyngeal aspirate specimen yielded negative results for influenza A and B, parainfluenza 1, 2 and 3, adenovirus, respiratory syncytial virus and enterovirus.
CHP staff have visited the school which the girl had attended and health advice has been given to the school. The school did not have an outbreak of infectious disease.
The case will be referred to the Coroner's Court for investigation.
The CHP's investigation is on-going.
Ends/Thursday, September 4, 2008
Issued at HKT 19:16
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