Medics Wonder Why Bird Flu Hits Children Most

Hanoi - Four of the five people killed in Vietnam by an outbreak of bird flu were children, and the other the mother of one of the young victims, but experts don't know why the young seem to be more at risk.

At Hanoi's paediatric hospital, the front line in the country's battle against avian flu, doctors wearing goggles and gowns monitor nine children, all suffering from a respiratory illnesses that doctors fear could be bird flu.

The World Health Organisation says there has been no sign the disease is being spread between humans. Its victims are believed to have caught it from infected chickens. Eating cooked chicken and eggs is safe, officials say.

'Until now, the flu has particularly been in children, but we don't know why' But the experts do not know if children are more susceptible to the H5N1 virus because they play outside and are more likely to come into contact with chicken droppings, or because their immune systems are weaker.

"Until now, the flu has particularly been in children, but we don't know why," said Dr Nguyen Nang Tan, a neurologist at the Vietnam France Hospital in Hanoi.

Peter Horby, a WHO epidemiologist, questioned the masked and gowned mothers of the nine sick children on Monday afternoon, as the woman sat cradling their sick babies, looking for clues.

"The children that got the H5N1, we still don't know where they got it from," he said. "Clearly the concern is they got it from the chickens."

The four children who died were admitted to the hospital already very sick and rapidly deteriorated, Horby said. The first death occurred on December 30 and the most recent, an eight-year-old girl, died on Saturday, two days after she was admitted.

An alarmed government has urged parents to be on guard for the virus that has threatened to mar the Tet, or Lunar New Year, holiday that begins on Wednesday.

The dead were all from rural northern provinces, which are dotted with farms, while the worst outbreak of the flu in chickens has been in the south.

No confirmed human infections of H5N1 have been reported in the south, the WHO says.

About two million chickens have been killed by the disease or have been culled as authorities try to stamp it out.

The transport of chickens has been banned across much of the south and their sale has been stopped in the country's biggest city, Ho Chi Minh City, also in the south.

SARS bites into Hong Kong snake restaurants

January 20 2004 at 08:39AM
By Carrie Lee

Hong Kong - Opposite a writhing mass of snakes in a glass tank, Kam Oi-ho stirred a steaming pot of snake soup and filled a bowl for his first customer of the day.

Chinese people think eating snakes is good for you, especially in winter when the meat is believed to keep you warm. But not this year.

"Our business has plunged 70 to 80 percent since the SARS outbreak last year," Kam said, as he looked around his near empty stall, which also sports bottles of wine containing snakes and their innards.

'Since the SARS outbreak last year, I feel wild animals are disgusting'

"The recent scare in Guangzhou has slashed business by another 40 percent in the past few weeks," he said.

China has confirmed three new cases of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome in recent weeks in the southern province of Guangdong, where the disease first emerged in late 2002 before spreading to more than 30 countries.

The virus eventually infected about 8,000 people and killed nearly 800 of them, including 299 in Hong Kong.

Snake lovers used to have their fill in small Hong Kong stalls like Kam's, where snakes are sometimes killed and skinned next to your table. There were even special snake banquets, where every part was used and cooked in different ways.

The mild-tasting meat is firmer than fish but often more tender than chicken. The organs of the animals, most of which are caught in the wild in Southeast Asia, are touted as having all sorts of benefits.

But experts believe the SARS virus jumped from animals to humans. Prime suspect is the civet cat, also served up as a delicacy, and even though snakes have never figured on the list of possible SARS sources, diners are taking no chances.

"Since the SARS outbreak last year, I feel wild animals are disgusting. I haven't had any snake soup since," said Betty Chan, a company executive.

On the walls of Kam's shop, one of Hong Kong's oldest and best-known, ageing newspaper clippings are proof that business was brisk in the past.

"In the peak winter season, we used to sell 300 to 500 bowls of snake soup a day. Now we sell maybe only about 100 bowls," said Kam, whose "Snake King Yuen" stall also supplies snake meat to large restaurants.

"Out of every 100 restaurants that used to serve snake soup or dishes, only 10 are still doing so," he said, as he drew a wriggling serpent from a container and headed to the slaughter room.

"We keep only 50 snakes in this stall, compared with more than 1 000 in the past," Kam said, as he slit a snake lengthwise with a knife, removing its skin and plucking out the organs.

"There are about 100 snake stalls in Hong Kong. I think about half of them will have to fold soon," he said.

Yip Kwok-leung, who runs the Snake King Leung eatery, agreed.

"This is the worst time in my 20-odd years in this trade. Our customers have fallen by half since the last SARS outbreak and I think the trade will get more difficult in the future."

But snake meat still has some fans.

"There are so many animals that are said to be bad to eat. Can we possibly avoid all of them?" said Peter Leung as he waited for his order.

"I live far away but I had to come here for snake soup because many others have shut down," he said.

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