Posted on 11/16/2005 7:28:52 AM PST by TigerLikesRooster
China finds first human bird flu cases
By Brian Rhoads
39 minutes ago
China confirmed on Wednesday its first human cases of bird flu, adding to fears of a global pandemic in which millions of people could die.
China's Ministry of Health reported two cases in the central province of Hunan and one in eastern Anhui, the official Xinhua news agency said. The World Health Organization (WHO) said one of the victims in Hunan was a girl of 12 who died last month.
The spread of bird flu to people in the world's most populous country is a significant development. The deadly H5N1 form of bird flu has already killed more than 60 people in Asia and is endemic in poultry in parts of the region.
The WHO said it had been informed by China that a 9-year-old boy from Hunan province suspected of having bird flu was indeed stricken by the H5N1 virus, as was his 12-year-old sister, who fell ill and died last month.
In October, China reported that hundreds of chickens and ducks had died in Wantang village in Xiangtan County, near Hunan's provincial capital of Changsha. After mass culling and disinfection, the area was declared free of bird flu this week.
Chinese officials initially reported that the two children in Hunan had suffered pneumonia and not bird flu, but later invited international experts in to help investigate the cases.
The boy was discharged from hospital last weekend.
WHO spokesman Roy Wadia said the third case was identified as a woman in Anhui province. Xinhua did not identify any of the victims.
"It's not a surprise. It shows that China like other countries that have bird flu in poultry can have human cases," Wadia said.
Wadia also said a teacher in Hunan had fallen ill with symptoms of pneumonia and was still considered a suspect bird flu case. A poultry worker in the northeastern province of Liaoning, where an outbreak was reported among domestic birds this month, also was considered a suspected case, he said.
ASIA PLANS
The virus remains hard for people to catch and is still essentially a disease in birds. However, experts fear H5N1 could mutate into a form that passes easily among people, just like human influenza, putting millions of lives at risk.
Asian countries are scrambling to halt the spread of bird flu, with mass cullings of birds and vaccination of poultry. China on Tuesday announced plans to vaccinate billions of birds.
Researchers in Vietnam, where bird flu has killed 42 people, want to test a vaccine against the virus in humans next year, providing it gets clearance from the government and the WHO.
Pham Ngoc Dinh, deputy head of the National Hygiene and Epidemiology Institute, told Reuters that Vietnam had started work on a human bird flu vaccine in early 2004 and had tested it successfully on chickens and monkeys.
ROCHE DEAL
The main producer of Tamiflu, the drug believed to be the best defense against a possible flu pandemic, has settled a dispute with the drug's inventor over production and royalties.
Governments have been seeking to stockpile the drug as a precaution against the possible outbreak of a human variant but Swiss drug maker Roche has come under pressure over concerns production could fall short.
The drug's inventor, U.S. company Gilead Sciences, will get a greater say in plans to increase production of the drug by farming out parts of the process to third-party producers such as generic drug makers.
Gilead's share of the royalties from Tamiflu sales, which are expected to reach more than $1 billion due to government orders, will remain unchanged, although it will no longer have to shoulder the burden of certain manufacturing costs.
The settlement also involves Roche paying the U.S. firm around $62.5 million in reimbursements.
(Additional reporting by Ho Binh Minh in Hanoi, Rahul Sharma in Singapore, Joel Kirkhart in Beijing and Tom Armitage in Zurich)
Ping!
Officially 3 cases...unofficially 3k cases
H5N1 Fatalities Widespread in China?
A brief excerpt from that report:
Widespread H5N1 Fatalities in China?China's Ministry of Health on Wednesday confirmed three human cases of bird flu, including two cases in the central Hunan province and one in eastern Anhui, said the official Xinhua news agency, monitored in Singapore.
The above report expands the number of confirmed H5N1 human cases in China. Since these cases survive, their H5N1 antibodies rise, so testing of serum collected 3-4 weeks after symptoms provides sero-conversion data, which shows the infection was recent and qualifies as a official case (if confirmed by an outside lab).
These data lend credibility to boxun reports of widespread H5N1 deaths, particularly in provinces experiencing poultry outbreaks. These widespread human fatalities would also be consistent with the aggressive containment approaches in China.
I found this report on this news site
I think this stuff is confined to the Asian continent. Other things have specifically gone wrong over there, so they should just figure out what the problem is. Something like this may have even occurred years ago-I seem to vaguely remember something. Media is blasting it in our ears like it's right next door, and it isn't and probably will not be here at any point in time. Some uncleanness in that area of the world allows for it to thrive. If the media reports stuff like this, how 'bout not scaring the daylights out of the U.S. in the process?
Beijing is falsifying their reports to the U.N./WHO. In the meantime, Recombinomics has been reporting for over a year that a cover up was going on in China. Some areas of China have martial law in place and people are allowed to die in remote areas. Bodies are being burned. Total news black out and censorship. People that report the truth are thrown into prison. Why? Because China is afraid of adverse economic consequences of the avian flu. Beijing is afraid of a total trade shut down if the truth got out.
All it would take to spread this killer flu across the U.S. is a few infected passengers returning on a flight from Hong Kong. The Chinese government is corrupt and the U.N./WHO is trying to keep the public calm. This is not a time for keeping things quiet.
Thank you for letting me know and I totally agree with it all. And the worst part is that most people think the U.N. and W.H.O. are just peachy/alright organizations when they are really just a bunch of con artists.
I remember reading about this girl a few weeks ago. Initially it was reported she died of bird flu after eating infected chickens. Then, the official word from China was pneumonia, not bird flu. I guess the original reports were right about the cause of death being bird flu, although she probably contracted it from handling sick chickens (not from eating them -- apparently, one's health being affected almost exclusively from one's diet is a common mainland-Chinese misconception).
Very few people here think well of either WHO or the UN. China ( and WHO ) have a very bad reputation for truthfullness since the SARS outbreak two years ago. If it had not been for the courage of a single Chinese scientist, far more people could have died from SARS while China denied everything.
The Chinese evidently have learned nothing from that episode; in my opinion they are repeating their bad behavior with H5N1.
the big question. when does it go from human to human?
It is already according to the scientists at Recombinomics. Has been going from human to human for over a year now. Victims of the bird flu in Vietnam and China are treated by military hospitals. After they die their bodies are burned. China is keeping the truth secret. My advice to you is not to travel anywhere near Asia.
I've read about the H7N3 but do not recall that it is as virulent. Thanks for post 5, I hadn't read it yet.
But I've not trusted China to ever be forthcoming about information, since years ago when I first heard they lied about casualties in some natural disaster.
I can understand trying to keep interior information to itself, in a way, but I do NOT understand keeping quiet about worldwide threats, like SARS or H5N1. No detente or trade relationship can EVER make up for that.
"Very few people here think well of either WHO or the UN. China ( and WHO ) have a very bad reputation for truthfullness since the SARS outbreak two years ago. If it had not been for the courage of a single Chinese scientist, far more people could have died from SARS while China denied everything."
Thank you for letting me know. As China's denial goes, none of that surprises me after reading much about Tieneneman Square business a while back.
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