Bird Flu: Girl, 9, dies; suspected infections soar to 164

The girl was Lop Buri's first suspected bird flu case since the current outbreak was confirmed in Phichit on July 24, said Pranom Khamtiang, Lop Buri's chief public health officer.

Results of laboratory tests on the girl's tissue to determine if she was infected with the H5N1 avian flu virus were due out today.

However, livestock officials said the girl was unlikely to have flu as there had been no reports of fowls dying unusually in her village.

Two new suspected bird flu cases were reported in the eastern province of Chachoengsao yesterday. Both patients work in a duck processing plant where they handle the carcasses.

They had developed influenza symptoms over the past few days. Samples taken from them have been sent for diagnosis at a Bangkok laboratory.

Paijit Warachit, director-general of the Medical Sciences Department, said there were 164 suspected bird flu cases in 21 provinces so far, with 107 of them from Phichit.

The latest confirmed case was a 17-year-old man from Phichit province who died from the H5N1 virus on July 24.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601101&sid=abwoEX6tKnyE&refer=japan

Thai Bird Flu Case Suggests Under-Reporting in Fowl (Update2)
Aug. 4 (Bloomberg) -- A 17-year-old man who died of bird flu in Thailand last week, the country's first case this year, suggests the virus is being under-reported in poultry, the influenza team at the European Centre for Disease Surveillance and Control said.

The youth from a northern province was hospitalized on July 18 suffering fever, cough and headache and died six days later, the Thai Bureau of General Communicable Diseases said in a July 26 report. A week before his symptoms appeared he buried 10 dead chickens, touching the carcasses with his bare hands. His phlegm tested positive for the H5N1 avian flu strain.

The case ``could be an example of the phenomenon of a sentinel human already seen in other countries, where it is only the severe illness or death of a person from H5N1 that triggers detection or reporting of H5N1 in poultry,'' the team in Stockholm said in a report. ``This suggests under-detection or under-reporting of poultry deaths.''

Thailand widened the search for avian flu patients and improved surveillance for the virus in poultry as a result of the death of the youth. New cases create chances for H5N1 to mutate into a pandemic form and world health authorities are tracking the disease for signs it's becoming more contagious.

The virus is known to have infected 232 people in 10 countries, killing 134 of them. Most infections occurred in Asia through contact with birds. The disease may kill millions should it start spreading easily between people, researchers have said.

Respiratory Symptoms

Thailand awaits laboratory tests on 259 people with respiratory symptoms, of whom 32 are from Phichit, the same province where the teenager died last week, the country's Bureau of General Communicable Diseases said on its Web site today.

So far this year, Thai health authorities have investigated more than 2,300 clinical influenza or pneumonia patients as part of routine surveillance. Only one was infected with H5N1.

Thai health officials recorded 65,100 cases of seasonal influenza in the first seven months of this year. Of those patients, 370 died, Thawat Suntrajarn, director general of the health ministry's disease control department, told reporters today in the capital, Bangkok.

``Our biggest concern is the outbreak of seasonal flu in Pichit, where the bird flu virus is still active'' in poultry, and in nearby provinces, Thawat said. The initial symptoms of both avian and seasonal influenza are similar.

Dangerous Duo

Health officials are concerned that people may contract H5N1 while they have seasonal influenza. The dual infections may allow the H5N1 virus to mutate into a pandemic form, Thawat said.

``Bird flu is very lethal with a high fatality rate among infected patients, while seasonal flu is easily transmitted between humans,'' he said. ``Any combination of both viruses in a person would be very dangerous.''

Doctors have given Roche Holding AG's Tamiflu antiviral to all patients with bird flu-like symptoms even though the laboratory results haven't confirmed their infections, Thawat said. Early prescription increases patients' chances of recovery if they have the disease, he said.

Laboratory tests on a 9-year-old girl, who died earlier this week in Lop Buri province, showed she had seasonal flu, not the H5N1 strain, Paijit Warachit, director general of Thailand's Medical Science Department, said in a telephone interview today.

Tests on two suspected avian flu patients in Chachoengsao also showed they suffered from seasonal flu, Thawat said.

Wild Birds

Concern about fresh bird flu outbreaks have been fanned by reports of sick poultry. Laos, Thailand's northeastern neighbor, said the virus killed thousands of poultry in several farms owned by a commercial producer near the capital, Vientiane.

``There remains a constant risk of outbreak reoccurrence'' because of the large numbers of free-range poultry that haven't previously been exposed to the virus, and the movement and mixing of fighting cocks, the ECD team said in its report.

``There is also the additional risk from wild birds mixing with the free-grazing birds,'' the team said. The report was published yesterday in Eurosurveillance, an online journal of peer-reviewed information on communicable diseases.

In Vietnam's Kien Giang province on the Cambodian border, a man was hospitalized with damaged lungs and high fever about a week after eating duck, the Tuoi Tre newspaper reported yesterday. Tests were negative for H5N1, said Nguyen Thi Kim Tien, director of the Pasteur Institute in Ho Chi Minh City.

The Nguoi Lao Dong newspaper reported today that the virus was found in storks in the Suoi Tien district of Ho Chi Minh City, and in ducks from two flocks in the southern province of Tay Ninh.

Tests on the duck flocks were negative for the H5 avian flu subtype, said Nguyen Xuan Binh, deputy head of the Ho Chi Minh City regional center for animal health, which is responsible for carrying out tests on animal samples from southern provinces.

``We have just received samples from the stork flock in Suoi Tien today, and tests are underway,'' Binh said.

A swan found dead in Dresden zoo in eastern Germany was infected with H5N1, the first such infection in the country in almost three months, Agence France-Presse said yesterday.

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=34234

Thais Make Cheap Generic Drug Against Bird Flu
Marwaan Macan-Markar

BANGKOK, Aug 4 (IPS) - Having succeeded in producing cheap generic drugs to help people with HIV/AIDS enjoy longer lives, Thailand is now ready with generics capable of helping its citizens fight the onslaught of another deadly virus -- bird flu.

The announcement by Thai scientists that they now have a generic version of Tamiflu, the only known anti-viral drug capable of stopping an epidemic of avian influenza, could not have been better timed. It offers hope for cheaper treatment just as the country is grappling with a virulent outbreak of the H5N1 strain of the virus in its poultry population, after a seven-month lull....

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There is mounting concern over the fourth round of bird flu to hit the country. A nine-year-old girl from Lop Buri province died from bird-flu like symptoms yesterday as the number of suspected human cases surged to 164 in 21 provinces.

Paijit Warachit, director-general of the Medical Sciences Department, said there were 164 suspected bird flu cases in 21 provinces so far, with 107 of them from Phichit.