China: 77 Avian Flu Patients Dead in Liaoning Province...Victim's Name Published on Internet

Daily China ^ | 11/21/05

[TigerLikesRooster]

/begin my translation

China: 77 Avian Flu Patients Dead in Liaoning Province...Victim's Name Published on Internet

2005/11/21 

In Liaoning Province of China, 6 people were infected with H5N1 Avian Flu and had died recently, according to Nov. 20 report by an overseas Chinese language news site, Boxun, quoting the article posted by a poster.

Six victims were 4 students in Beining City, 1 epidemic-prevention worker, and another person whose identity is unknown. According to the post, the number of dead people from H5N1 Avian Flu in Liaoning Province has reached 77, including the six new victims. Furthermore, at one of domestic Chinese Internet site, the name of 14 migrant farm workers killed by Avian Flu were published on Nov. 19.

According to the post at Boxun.com,  government gives monetary compensation to victim's family in return for not divulging the nature of victim's death. However, if it gets ever revealed, not a single cent of compensation would be given, and would be arrested for endangering social order and security.

Of the 6 dead, the family of epidemic-prevention worker were given 240,000 yuan($30,000), and other victim's family were given 120,000 yuan($15,000). Those families who got less complained to Beijing government, and this led to the news leak to others.

The number of people who were suspected of Avian Flu and underwent a medical test or were quarantined for a short period of time has exceeded 150,000. Furthermore, rumors are spreading in the local area, which say that Avian Flu can now spread from person to person. This plunged the local residents into panic. The number of infected people in Liaoning Province is estimated to exceed those of Qing-hai Province during the previous Avian Flu outbreak(a few months ago.)

The name of 14 dead victims were published in a post at an Chinese domestic Internet site called 'Tienya Forum.' It said that most of the dead were farm workers from Sichuan, Hunan, Anhui Province, who were working at the area of Liaoning Province where Avian Flu is raging. The poster who published the list said that he did so in order to inform the victim's family of what happened. Its detail are as follows:

According to migrant farm workers in Liaoning Province, most of them has died from H5N1 Avian Flu or been placed in quarantine. If a person dies from Avian Flu and he does not have his family in the local area, he was immediately cremated, leading the victim's family to believe that he is just missing. Due to tight information control, I could only obtain the names of 14 dead victims. The list is as follows. All died from H5N1 Avian Flu and their bodies were cremated.

/end my translation

[TigerLikesRooster]

The link to the original Boxun article is:

http://www.peacehall.com/news/gb/china/2005/11/200511201058.shtml

At the end of the article is the personal information of 14 victims.

[TigerLikesRooster]

Ping!

[saganite]

If the Avian flu is actualy sreading person to person would this be the first time? It's been my understanding that you have to have intimate contact with infected foul to catch it.

[Iowa Granny]

Interesting stuff

[NautiNurse]

Ping

[TigerLikesRooster]

Ping!

[saveliberty]

One of the news organizations was giving China great praise for the speed in which it produces flu vaccine.

But the death rate raises these questions--

How safe are the vaccines?
Why is the vulnerability in China so much higher?
Does this relate back to SARS?
Why was the vulnerability in China so much higher for SARS/

[dawn53]

Most Chinese come in contact with poultry everyday of their lives, at least those that shop for food for the family. Seems to me that this would put the Chinese at increased risk for catching the avian flu from the birds themselves.

Open air markets are full of live poultry, and most Chinese shop at open air markets, even in the "big cities."

In the case of SARS, I believe that it was also traced to a open market in Guanghzou and was thought to have been contracted from a certain type of wild animal for sale there.

[saveliberty]

Thanks for the information! I seem to recall that SARS had some sort of appearance in a laboratory though.

[genefromjersey]

You're right about the lab. I don't recall all the details,but an official-who was making a big show of peering through a microscope,but didn't know what he was doing-knocked over the specimens he was "studying",and walked away-presumably leaving the cleanup to subordinates.

The spill was discovered hours later. By then, a large number of people had been exposed, including those the party official was in contact with-when he boarded an airplane.

[saveliberty]

Wow! Makes me wonder why they were fooling around with that kind of stuff.

[SmoothTalker]

Scary stuff. One of these days we will get a new pandemic. It has happened many times in the past, and will happen again many times in the future. I pray this isn't the one and fizzles out like the Swine Flu did.

[Lazamataz]

China: 77 Avian Flu Patients Dead in Liaoning Province

Errr...

Not good.

[wolfcreek]

Thanks for the translation! Lieing to the world about this disease can only make things worse for all concerned. We need more folks like you to get the truth out.

[dawn53]

I did a little googling. Don't know what the final out come was, but from this article and many others, it was suspected that SARS was linked to civet cats in Guangdong province and Guangzhou markets.

http://www.mongabay.com/external/china-2004_civit_kill.html

[silverleaf]

Human to human transmission of avian flu has occurred, as much as a year ago. I think case was confirmed as such in Vietnam.

If you read official pronouncments carefully you will see a bit of weasel wording about this. Being kept low key.

[Judith Anne]

Thank you very much for the translation, and for posting the article.

I'm shocked, and speechless. The implications are staggering.

[Judith Anne]

I swear, you are the only person who can make me laugh WTSHTF. For that, I call you FRiend. ;-D

[balch3]

As I recall, the human to human transmission in Vietnam was from a patient to a family member caring for him. Transmission through casual contact has not occurred, at least not officially.

[Judith Anne]

Human to human transmission of avian flu has occurred, as much as a year ago. I think case was confirmed as such in Vietnam.

First, it was said that h2h transmission was the tipping point. Then, when THAT happened in VN, it was said that sustained h2h transmission would be the tipping point.

It looks like we might have sustained h2h transmission.

Next bar will likely be "when sustained h2h transmission occurs beyond two levels, i.e. h2h2h transmission." I bet that has happened.

Elsewhere, it was said, "When medical workers start dying of it," or "When case numbers are in the dozens" or "when whole towns are sealed off" or "when thousands are put in isolation," etc.

I think the tipping point has been reached, and since this article is from the 20th of November, I suspect that it was reached some time ago. The events in this article took place BEFORE the 20th of November--weeks before.

What is the likelihood that somebody carrying H5N1 in pandemic form has left Asia? Pretty high, I'd bet. It only took one doctor on an airplane trip to spread SARS to over 30 countries in a VERY short time...and influenza spreads a lot faster than SARS did...