Vietnam Suspected Bird Flu Victim Tests Positive

One of three people who died of suspected bird flu has tested positive for the H5N1 strain of the avian flu virus, heightening fears about the return of a disease that killed 24 people in Asia earlier this year.

One of three people who died of suspected bird flu has tested positive for the H5N1 strain of the avian flu virus, heightening fears about the return of a disease that killed 24 people in Asia earlier this year.Vietnam’s health ministry said eight more people suspected of being infected with bird flu were in hospital.Three deaths were being examined by the Geneva-based World Health Organization, which said in a statement one of them had “tested positive for the H5N1 strain of avian influenza.”The same strain killed 16 people in Vietnam and eight in Thailand earlier this year and outbreaks of bird flu have hit poultry farms in several countries in Asia in recent weeks.The positive test was from a 25-year-old woman who lived in southern Hau Giang province and had come into contact with poultry, WHO officials said. The other two fatal cases from the northern Ha Tay province — a four-year-old boy and an 11-month-old girl — were still being tested, the WHO said.The three victims died between Aug. 2 and Aug. 6.Additional patients from the northern and southern parts of the country were being tested, the WHO said. Specimens from household contacts of the confirmed cases have been taken, although all of them are healthy so far, the WHO said.Adding to the sense of alarm, the Vietnamese health ministry urged the immediate hospitalization of anyone with high fever who had been in contact with sick poultry.”There is no special medicine for it and no vaccine for humans,” it said on Thursday in a statement.Typical symptoms are coughing, high fever and sore throat. Death usually occurs within days.Thailand, Vietnam, China and Indonesia have also reported fresh cases of bird flu in poultry in past weeks, re-igniting fears the illness could sweep across Asia just months after a mass culling campaign of tens of millions of poultry.The WHO said it was concerned that human infections would result in a mutated new virus “with pandemic potential.” The Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918-19 killed between 20 million and 50 million people worldwide. The exact source of this virulent strain is unknown but is thought to have been wild birds.Vietnam WHO representative Hans Troedsson said the WHO was prepared to fly in experts to help contain the outbreak.Health authorities said this week they were testing samples from four suspected bird flu victims who died between July 30 and Aug. 2, all from Hau Giang, about 170 km (106 miles) southwest of Ho Chi Minh City.The government has ordered the culling of all poultry in any area where the virus is detected. In addition, authorities are killing birds within a 1 km radius of the areas, said Food and Agriculture Organization program officer Fabio Friscia.In Thailand, the world’s fourth-largest poultry exporter last year, officials said the virus has hit 24 of its 76 provinces since the new flare up was reported on July 3, but there have been no outbreaks in new areas over the past week.Of 32 people tested in Thai hospitals after suffering fevers and respiratory problems, none showed infection by the H5N1 virus, a Thai Health Ministry official said.Fresh outbreaks of H5N1 have also occurred in Indonesia, but there is no evidence so far the disease had spread to people, said Tri Satya Naipospos, the director of animal health at Indonesia’s agriculture ministry. (Source: Reuters, August 2004)