China's most recent bird flu patient left hospital on Wednesday after receiving two months of special treatment, local health authorities in Guangzhou said Wednesday.

The 31-year-old patient, surnamed Jiang, is the only male adult among the seven people to have survived the virus in China. Twelve of the 19 reported human cases in the country have been fatal.

Xu Sihu, a senior official from Shenzhen Health Bureau (SHB), warned that the patient might suffer side-effects from the medicines he had to take.

"Although he has recovered, his lung still has a shadow (a sign of potential abnormality), and the liver still needs time to fully recover," he said.

Xu warned future medical problems should not be ruled out

"We will give the patient frequent body checks," he said.

While Jiang is now recovering, quite how he came into contact with the disease remains unclear.

"This was a one-off case. Shenzhen is not a danger zone for bird flu," Jiang Hanping, director of SHB, told a press briefing yesterday. "We haven't had any more reports of H5N1, and the patient had no genetic variation of the virus."

No poultry in the city have been found with the virus, he noted.

Jiang, a truck driver, fell ill on June 3, and the only possible link to poultry was a visit to a market that sold chickens in mid-May.

On that occasion his wife bought a chicken and cooked it for five family members that night. No other family members came down with the virus.

Jiang developed a fever, back pains and a cough on June 3 and was admitted to hospital six days later. He was confirmed as having contracted the H5N1 strain of bird flu on June 15.

The city soon organized the best doctors available to save his life.

Source: China Daily