Hong Kong, which has autonomy in domestic matters including health, dispatched an investigation team to Sichuan to "aid" the central government's Ministry of Health team investigating the outbreak of a pig-borne disease that's infected more than 180 people, mainly in Sichuan province in the southwest, killing 34 of them.
I put "aid" in quote marks, because I assume the real reason for the invite was to provide a way of funneling information to the outside world (the Hong Kong government on most issues being considerably more open than it mainland equivalent.)
The Hong Kong government held a press conference today, which I watched over the Internet. It said two of the doctors it dispatched, clinicians with experience with infectious diseases, were allowed free access to patients infected by the disease and examined about 30 of them. Their conclusions are below.
The doctors concluded a) that the clinical symptons are all consistent with infection by streptoccus suis, the endemic pig-borne bacteria that China has blamed for the outbreak. b) there is no clinical indication of co-infection with avian influenza or any other disease and c) the symptoms are consistent with "classic" strep suis and there's no reason to suspect a mutant, more virulent strain.
The key problem with this assessment (which were admitted by the Hong Kong government) were that this assessment is based on clinical evidence, rather than laboratory evidence, not all of which was yet available, at least to the Hong Kong team. Hong Kong hasn't yet received samples for independent testing. And even testing won't be conclusive because some people were treated without being tested first, so would return a negative result even if they had been tested.
The Hong Kong government also admits the extremely high human mortality rate from this disease in China is "troubling." Possible explanations include a wider-than-usual outbreak among pigs translating into more human cases, the local practice of only killing sick pigs to cull them as a last resort, and the "uneven" provision of medical care in the affected areas (rural districts that are relatively poor.) I'm not sure the officials sounded particularly convinced by these explanations.
I'm not a doctor, but my guess would be, if I had to make one, that this is a variant version of strep suis. It's not responsing well to treatment, according to WHO officials. Similar cases in Guangdong province and Hong Kong, where it's also endemic, have responded to antibiotic, although one of the 11 cases in Hong Kong this year has been fatal (Hong Kong has 7.9 million people, so the infection rate in the city isn't troubling.)
If yout want to watch the press conference clic here and to read the Hong Kong government press release here