- Jeff - If nations, like China, hide outbreaks and risk
the world health by denials when infact an outbreak is occurring, we will
see more WHO involvement. This is not a good thing!
-
- I happen to feel the UN is far too powerful and would
like to see less WHO involvement. I would like to see more honesty on
the part of the individual governments with regard to truth in disease
reporting. China, the US and other nations covered up the extent of the
SARS outbreak which enabled it to spread and kill more people.
-
- We saw a coverup and denial by the WHO with regard to
the WSN/33 influenza in pigs in South Korea and now are seeing WSN/33 recombining
in pigs throughout South Korea.
-
- I don't feel that we can or should rely on the WHO to
"keep" countries honest in their disease reporting.
-
- Patricia Doyle
-
- Commentary
-
- Deaths In New Delhi, India And Qinghai, China
Linked Via H5N1?
-
- Recombinomics Commentary
- By Dr. Henry L. Niman, PhD
- 5-29--5
-
- The 121 reported deaths linked to the bird flu deaths
at the Qinghai Lake Nature Reserve have not been addressed by announcements
out of China. There have been blanket denials of human H5N1 cases, which
have specifically mentioned a lack of pneumonia deaths. However, the 121
fatalities in 18 communities in Gangcha county have not been pneumonia
deaths. The reported cases had fever and vomiting, but did not have respiratory
problems.
-
- Earlier reports of H5N1 deaths in Vietnam included cases
that did not initially present as respiratory cases. There was one case
well described, in the New England Journal of Medicine, with neurological
involvement. Such involvement with H5N1 in poultry and laboratory mice
and ferrets is well known, and recent reports on the tiger deaths in Thailand
decribed neurologic involvement of H5N1..
-
- The initial reports on the dead geese at Qinghai Lake
indicated they did not die of H5N1 infections, suggesting an unusual pathology.
The initial reports described the deaths of 178 bar -headed geese. The
geese can migrate 1000 miles in a day and many nest in the nature reserve
after arriving in May and June from the northern plains of India. The
initial dead geese were found on May 4, which would be the time for early
arrivals from India.
-
- In early May, New Delhi, in northern India, was experiencing
an outbreak of meningitis. A small percentage of cases were laboratory
confirmed bacterial meningitis. The case fatality rate was about 10%.
The number of cases in India has continued to rise and after a lull in
reported cases, the numbers have begun to rise again. Although initial
cases were in New Delhi, additional cases near the northern plains have
been reported.
-
- Recently, the detection of H5N1 antibodies in three poultry
workers in India has been disclosed. The serum from these patients was
collected in 2002, detected at the end of 2004, and reported recently.
The poultry workers had not traveled in 2002, suggesting locally acquired
infections. India has denied H5N1 infections in their report to OIE and
specifically mentioned the deaths of 250 pigeons that died at a temple
in 2004 in northeast India.
-
- The origin of the H5N1 in the bar-headed geese has not
been determined, but the wintering in northern India raises the possibility
that asymptomatic geese may have been present in northern India. The coincidence
between the outbreak of meningitis in New Delhi and the migration of bar-headed
geese to Qinghai Lake in China may be significant.
-
- Unfortunately, neither India nor Chia have reported on
the H5N1 status of the dead patients. Only the birds have been laboratory
confirmed to be H5N1 positive.
-
- The monitoring of H5N1 in Asia has been scandalously
poor and the widespread outbreaks of H5N1 has clearly put the world's health
at increased risk. The members of the World Health Association meeting
in Geneva recently passed regulations giving the WHO authority to investigate
incidents such as those reported in India and China linked to the H5N1
positive geese.
-
- Clearly now is an appropriate time to implement the new
regulations and clarify the status of H5N1 in humans in India and China.
-
-
-
- Patricia A. Doyle, PhD
- Please visit my "Emerging Diseases" message
board at: http://www.clickitnews.com/ubbthreads/postlist.php?
Cat=&Board=emergingdiseases
- Zhan le Devlesa tai sastimasa
- Go with God and in Good Health
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