Re: Vietnam - 3 Reported H5N1 Human Cases in Bac Kan - 11 Hospitalized, 33 Total Suspected Cases
Re: Vietnam - 3 Reported H5N1 Human Cases in Bac Kan - 11 Hospitalized, 33 Total Suspected Cases
PRO/AH/EDR> Avian influenza, human (30): Viet Nam (BK), cluster susp.
AVIAN INFLUENZA, HUMAN (30): VIET NAM (BAC KAN), CLUSTER SUSPECTED******************************************************************A ProMED-mail post<
http://www.promedmail.org>ProMED-mail is a program of theInternational Society for Infectious Diseases<
http://www.isid.org>[1]
Date: Wed 14 Apr 2010Source: Reuters AlertNet [edited
]<
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/TOE63D045.htm>
Two people in northern Viet Nam have been infected with the H5N1 bird flu virus [avian influenza A(H5N1) virus], and health authorities are carrying out tests to see if 11 others who have come down with fever have been infected. The 2 who tested positive -- a 22-year-old man and a 27-month-old baby girl -- as well as the 11 suspected cases are all residents in the same commune in Bac Kan province
[see also: Avian influenza, human (29): Viet Nam (BK), cluster, susp.
20100412.1188]
."All the patients have been isolated, and tests were taken to verify the reason of their sickness," said Deputy Director Luu Xuan Hoa of the Cho Moi Medical Centre in Bac Kan province. "She (the baby) is a neighbour of the 1st man who has tested positive for the H5N1 virus, while others live in the same hamlet," he said. Four people on the suspect list have been discharged.Disease clusters are a special concern because it may mean the agent in this case, the avian influenza A(H5N1) virus, which kills up to 60 percent of those it infects, is gaining the ability to jump from person to person. Vietnamese media, however, reported that dead poultry had been seen in the village and that the patients had either eaten or come in contact with sick birds.
This opens the possibility that the 2 patients may have been infected by the same source. "We have no evidence to conclude that there is a human-to-human infection," Hoa said.
Viet Nam had 2 bird flu deaths earlier this year [2010], a 38-year-old woman and a 3-year-old girl.The H5N1 virus once was a disease confined largely to birds, only rarely infecting people. Since 2003, it has infected 493 people, killing 292, or nearly 60 percent, with Viet Nam reporting 59 deaths [among 117 cases, not including the 2 cases described in this report. - Mod.CP]. Almost all these infections were believed to have taken place directly from bird to human.There have been 2 sizeable clusters -- one in which 8 family members died on the Indonesian island of Sumatra in 2006 and another in Turkey in which 8 people were infected and 4 died. In the Sumatra case, the virus [affected] 2 generations and then stopped; a 37-year-old woman was believed to have infected her 10-year-old nephew who went on to infect his father.Another smaller probable case of human-to-human transmission occurred in Thailand in 2004, where a mother died after tending to her sick daughter for hours.[Byline: Ho Binh Minh]--Communicated by
roMED-mail Rapporteur Mary Marshall******
[2]Date: Tue 13 Apr 2010Source: CIDRP News [edited]<
http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/cidrap/content/influenza/avianflu/news/apr1310avian.html>Two patients who are part of a suspected H5N1 avian influenza case cluster in northern Viet Nam's Bac Kan province are still hospitalized, with 11 others isolated for flu-like symptoms, health officials said today [13 Apr 2010]. The 2 hospitalized patients include a 22-year-old man and a 27-month-old girl whose confirmed infections were previously reported by the Vietnamese media.Hoang Van Linh, deputy director of northern Bac Kan's health department, told the news service that some of the isolated group includes relatives of the 2 hospitalized patients. Hoang said the 11 people in isolation recovered after treatment with oseltamivir (Tamiflu) and that he is awaiting test results to see if any were infected with avian influenza A(H5N1) virus.
The man was hospitalized on 2 Apr 2010 and remains under care, and the toddler, admitted on 4 Apr 2010, is in stable condition.Viet Nam's Health Ministry, in a Web posting, said dead chickens were reported at the homes of the 2 hospitalized patients and that the toddler's family reportedly slaughtered and ate some of the infected poultry. A provincial infectious disease official said that all of the isolated patients had contact with sick birds.
Bac Kan province, a mountainous area in northern Viet Nam, was among 2 areas cited in H5N1 outbreak reports that the country's agriculture ministry submitted to the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) on 10 Apr 2010. The outbreak in Bac Kan started on 19 Mar 2010, killing 318 of 550 birds in the affected village. The remaining 142 birds were destroyed to control the spread of the virus.
The country also reported that the virus struck birds in a village in Quang Ninh province, located on Viet Nam's northeastern coast, killing 1231 of 1554 birds. The remaining poultry were destroyed. An investigation into the source of the events suggested that introduction of new animals, illegal movement of birds, and fomites were linked to the 2 avian influenza A(H5N1) virus outbreaks, the OIE report stated.Geographic and family H5N1 clusters are relatively rare, and they raise fears that the virus has improved its ability to infect humans, which could increase the risk that the virus could become a pandemic flu strain. For example, a cluster of confirmed and suspected H5N1 cases occurred in northwestern Pakistan in late 2007.
The World Health Organization (WHO) investigation revealed that the virus probably spread among 4 brothers and went no further.Also in late 2007, the father of a Chinese man who died of an H5N1 infection was hospitalized with avian influenza A(H5N1) virus infection. Reports at the time were unclear about the men's exposure to sick and dead birds.Despite periodic reports of clusters, human-to-human transmission of avian influenza A(H5N1) virus, though suspected in some instances, has been confirmed in the laboratory only once, in a North Sumatra, Indonesia family in 2006. That cluster involved 7 cases, 6 of them fatal
. A WHO investigation into the illnesses revealed that the virus mutated slightly when it infected a 10-year-old boy, who then passed the same virus to his father.[Byline: Lisa Schnirring]--Communicated by
roMED-mail <
promed@promedmail.org>
[
Little new information has become available since the previous report, and it is still unclear whether the avian influenza A (H5N1) virus infection of the 22-year-old man and the 27-month-old child have been officially confirmed. If the diagnosis has been confirmed officially, the number of cases in Viet Nam will have risen to 119 since the beginning of the outbreak in 2003, the number of fatalities remaining 59.
Likewise, no further information has emerged concerning the diagnosis of the other 11 members of the suspected cluster (all of whom have been treated and discharged). Nor is there any information to exclude the likelihood of transmission directly from infected poultry or to favour the possibility of human-to-human transmission of infection. Further information is awaited.Bac Kan province can be located in the map of the Northern Region of Viet Nam at: <
http://www.angelfire.com/co/hongnam/vnmap.html>. The HealthMap/ProMED-mail interactive map of Viet Nam can be accessed at <
http://healthmap.org/r/01aL>. - Mod.CP]:tiphat:
http://www.promedmail.org/pls/otn/f..._BACK_PAGE,F2400_P1001_PUB_MAIL_ID:1000,82261
People who are planning travel to a country that has reported the virus or who are concerned about the Avian flu are advised to monitor the CDC and the WHO web sites for the latest information.:tiphat:http://vietnam.usembassy.gov/avian_flu_fact_sheet.html