- "Six people were admitted to our institute last
week. They have been tested positive to H5N1. Now, we're treating eight
bird flu patients in all," a nurse at the Institute of Tropical Diseases
in Hanoi capital city said on condition of anonymity.
-
- Among the eight patients, seven are showing good signs
of recovery, and one is in critical health condition, the nurse said, adding
that a doctor at the institute, who has taken specimens from bird flu patients
for testing, has temperature, one of the disease's symptoms.
-
- The above comments describe nine H5N1 bird flu patients
at the Institute of Tropical Diseases in Hanoi. Two would appear to be
patients admitted in May. Three such patients were described in the latest
WHO update. Six more were admitted last week, and wire service reports
indicate H5N1 has been confirmed in these six. The physician would represent
the 9th confirmed or suspect case. Since detail is lacking, there may
be additional patients admitted this week, who have not been confirmed
-
- Since there is no detail on gender, age, or location
on the new patients, it is unclear how clustered these cases are, other
than the relationship of the physician to the patients. However, if the
physician is H5N1 positive, then the transmission from patient to physician
would provide another data point indicating human-to-human transmission
in northern Vietnam is getting more efficient. The last reported physician
with bird flu symptoms was the 34 year old physician at Vietnam Swedish
hospital who developed Acute Respiratory Distress on April 1 and died two
days later.
-
- Although cluster data on the latest group of patients
in Hanoi is not available, the large number of cases in northern Vietnam
extends the observations on larger numbers of milder cases, and is cause
for concern that H5N1 in northern Vietnam is more efficiently transmitting
human-to-human.
-
- http://www.recombinomics.com/whats_new.html
-
-
- More Mild Bird Flu Cases in Northern Vietnam
-
- Recombinomics Commentary
- By Dr. Henry L. Niman, PhD
- June 14, 2005
-
- The Ministry of Health in Viet Nam has confirmed an
additional 3 human cases of infection with H5N1 avian influenza. The cases
were detected during the last two weeks of May. All three patients are
from Hanoi and remain alive. No further data about these cases have been
provided.
-
- The above comment from the latest WHO update on Vietnam
describes three more milder H5N1 cases in northern Vietnam. More geographical
or familial relationships were not provided, but the trend in northern
Vietnam has been set since the beginning of the year. The clusters are
larger and more frequent and the cases are milder. These milder cases
are similar to severe cases of human flu and therefore many H5N1 human
infections in northern Vietnam may go undetected.
-
- Sequence data from northern Vietnam included an HA cleavage
site missing an ARG. This missing basic amino acid matches the cleavage
site from 2003 and 2004 isolates in Hong Kong and southeastern China, raising
the possibility that mild human H5N1 cases are also in China. The homology
with 2005 Thailand isolates also raises the possibility of more human infections
there also.
-
- Recent comments on the sequence of H5N1 from bar headed
geese at Qinghai Lake also linked bird flu there to H5N1 in southeastern
China. The bar headed geese winter in India and Bangladesh and fly over
Tibet to nest at Qinghai Lake in May and June. Recently there have been
meningitis outbreaks in northern India, which coincide in time and location
with the bar headed geese migration.
-
- Interestingly, the crested eagles smuggled into Belgium
from Thailand had sequences matching those in Thialand, but the eagles
originated in Tibet.
-
- The linkage by time location and sequence of H5N1 cases
throughout southern and eastern Asia raise serious questions about H5N1
monitoring of birds and people. The scandalously poor monitoring significantly
compromises flu pandemic containment strategies.
-
-
- H5N1 in Qinghai Similar to H5N1 in Southeastern
China
-
- Recombinomics Commentary
- By Dr. Henry L. Niman, PhD
- June 13, 2005
-
- Lab director Chen Huanlan says it is "not a new
viral genotype" but similar to the viral strains found in southeast
China last year Guan Yi, a virologist at the University of Hong Kong, says
the finding raises questions about "how the virus got there."
<<
-
- Although the question of how the H5N1 in Qinghai got
there is a good question, questions of where H5N1 is in 2005 is also of
considerable importance. The initial bird flu casualties at Qinghai Lake
were bar headed geese, which winter in India and Bangladesh. Both countries
have filed statements in 2004 with OIE indicating they were H5N1 free,
the declaration from India mere stated that the 250 pigeons that dies in
northeast India, near Bangladesh tested negative for H5N1. However, false
negatives in northern and southern Vietnam were common as were false negatives
in Thailand. Thus, in the absence of a cause of death for the pigeons,
the negative data remains suspect
-
- Moreover, China has claimed to have been H5N1 free this
year, but a ProMed report from Fujian province described dying domestic
geese with symptoms that sounded remarkably like bird flu. These geese
were not tested, but merely replaced with geese from Jiangsu and Jiangxi,
which also died with the same symptoms, suggesting H5N1 infections in eastern
China are widespread.
-
- In addition, recent reports described the HA cleavage
site in isolates from foul in Gungdong Province, also in southeastern China.
Those isolates had cleavage sites that matched the common sequence in
genotype Z, found throughout Asia in 2004, as well as a sequence that had
lost a lysine, which matched isolated in Shanghai, Shantou, and Hunnan
Provinces. Another sequence in Guangdong was missing a lysine, which matched
earlier isolates from Yunnan and Hong Kong isolates, as well as more recent
isolates from Yunnan, Japan, in 2004 as well as northern Vietnam and possibly
Thailand in 2005, again raising questions about the absence of H5N1 in
eastern China
-
- Although China, India, and Bangladesh all claim to be
H5N1 free, the unprecedented bird deaths in migratory birds in Qinghai
Lake, followed by the deaths of domestic geese in Xinjiang suggest monitoring
of H5N1 in Asia has been, and remains, scandalously poor.
-
-
- 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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