Vietnam Confirms Bird Flu Deaths, Chinese Province Takes Emergency Action
Contributed by Gina Borgsdof | 08 January, 2005 19:05 GMT
Three cases of avian influenza, or bird flu, in humans were confirmed Saturday by Dr. Trinh Quan Huan, head of Vietnam's preventive medicine department. The disease reportedly is showing up mostly in the southern regions of the country where poultry outbreaks have been recurring.
China's Yunnan province, which shares a 1,200-kilometer border with Vietnam, is taking emergency steps to prevent the transmission of the virus to its population, according to press reports. Poultry vaccinations are being urged and disinfecting stations are being set up along the border.
Teenager in Critical Condition
Laboratory tests conducted in Ho Chi Minh City identified a strain of the H5N1 virus that is lethal to human beings. The three cases were identified between December 16 and January 7.
The most recent victim is a 16-year old girl in Tay Ninh province. She is hospitalized in critical condition, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
The earlier cases involved two boys, a 7-year old in Dong Thap province and a 10-year old in Tra Vinh province. Both of those children have died.
More Active in Cool Weather
Close contacts of these cases are being monitored for any signs of illness. Health authorities in Viet Nam, supported by WHO staff, have undertaken several measures to strengthen case detection.
Avian influenza viruses become more active when temperatures turn cooler. Activities associated with the approach of the Lunar New Year festivities in early February may increase the risk of further human cases.
"The epidemic of highly pathogenic avian influenza caused by H5N1, which began in mid-December 2003 in the Republic of Korea and is now being seen in other Asian countries ... is of particular public health concern," says a fact sheet on avian influenza on WHO's Web site.
Influenza Pandemic Expected
"H5N1 variants demonstrated a capacity to directly infect humans in 1997, and have done so again in Viet Nam in January 2004," the statement continues. The fact sheet does not mention the three most recent cases, however.
"The spread of infection in birds increases the opportunities for direct infection of humans," WHO explains. "If more humans become infected over time, the likelihood also increases that humans, if concurrently infected with human and avian influenza strains, could serve as the 'mixing vessel' for the emergence of a novel subtype with sufficient human genes to be easily transmitted from person to person. Such an event would mark the start of an influenza pandemic."
As the latest news indicates, more humans have, in fact, become infected. While the emergence of a "novel subtype" has not yet been confirmed, a suspected case of human-to-human transmission occurred last year in Thailand, when a 26-year-old woman died after apparently getting the virus from her 11-year-old daughter.
"Even in the best case scenarios of the next pandemic, 2 to 7 million people would die and tens of millions would require medical attention," says WHO in a statement. "If the next pandemic virus is a very virulent strain, deaths could be dramatically higher."
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