Darlene Posted January 15, 2007 Share Posted January 15, 2007 http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=206...&refer=home New Bird Flu Cluster May Signal Change in H5N1 Virus (Update2) By Jason Gale Jan. 15 (Bloomberg) -- A new cluster of bird flu infections involving at least two members of a family in Indonesia may indicate a change in the virus's ability to sicken people, researchers studying the disease said. The H5N1 avian influenza strain was confirmed yesterday to have infected an 18-year-old man whose mother died of the disease four days ago, said Mukhtar Ikhsan, a doctor treating the teenager and his father in Jakarta's Persahabatan hospital. Tests on the 42-year-old father are pending. If confirmed, the family from a western part of Java may represent the first incidence of H5N1 in a husband and wife, and indicate the virus can infect those without genetic susceptibility to infection, a theory doctors have used to explain previous clusters among blood relatives. The virus could spark a pandemic if it spreads among humans as easily as seasonal flu. The concern is that the virus may eventually overcome a ``genetic component'' that has appeared so far to limit its ability to infect humans, Michael Osterholm, director of the University of Minnesota's Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy in Minneapolis, said in a Jan. 12 interview. ``If that happens, then to me that is the really first worrisome piece of information that the pandemic may be pending.'' Avian flu has killed four people in Indonesia since Jan. 10 after a hiatus of almost two months. World health officials say H5N1 may touch off a pandemic capable of killing millions if it mutates to become easily transmissible between humans. The H5N1 strain is known to have infected 265 people in 10 countries since 2003, killing 159 of them, the World Health Organization said on Jan. 12. Indonesia has recorded at least 59 fatalities, it said. Sumatra Cluster The southeast Asian nation attracted international attention in May when blood relatives from the island of Sumatra contracted the H5N1 virus, six of them fatally. The cases represented the largest reported cluster of infections and the first laboratory-proven instance of human-to-human transmission. ``We have had enough proof from these clusters that there is something about at least certain genetically related individuals in whom the virus does fairly well,'' Osterholm said. ``That, to me, is not necessarily a big barrier to cross.'' Infections in birds and people are increasing, particularly in Asia, where the virus was first identified a decade ago. Hong Kong, Japan, Vietnam, South Korea and Nigeria have reported diseased birds in the past month, while China and Egypt also found new human cases. New Thai Outbreak? In Thailand, which reported three H5N1 fatalities in July and August, Agriculture Ministry officials are testing dead poultry found on a duck farm in Phitsanulok province earlier this month, the Krungthep Thurakit newspaper reported today, without saying where it obtained the information. The results of laboratory tests may be released today, it said. The Thai ministry intensified monitoring for avian flu after it reemerged in Vietnam, where it spread to at seven southern Vietnamese provinces. The H5N1 virus killed 66 ducks in My Tu district of Soc Trang province, the Vietnamese Ministry of Agricultural and Rural Development's department for animal health said yesterday. The remaining 134 ducks in the infected flock were culled, the department said in a statement on its Web site, adding that the poultry hadn't been properly vaccinated against avian flu. Almost all human H5N1 cases have been linked to close contact with sick or dead birds, such as children playing with them or adults butchering them or plucking feathers. Japan Outbreak Veterinary officials in Japan are culling fowl on a farm on the southern island of Kyushu, where H5N1 was confirmed Jan. 13, the country's first outbreak in almost three years. The administrative vice minister of agriculture will brief reporters in Tokyo later today on the outbreak. A suspected avian flu outbreak was recorded in northern Nigeria's Sokoto state a day after the disease was reportedly found to have infected 5,000 birds in nearby Kastina state, Agence France-Presse said yesterday, citing Forestry and Animal Health Commissioner Abdulkadir Junaidu. Nigeria reported an initial H5N1 outbreak in poultry in February last year, the first recorded infection of the virus in Africa. The disease was later found in 17 of Nigeria's 36 states as well as the Federal Capital Territory, reaching every corner of the country. No human infections were reported. ``We continue to be very concerned about Africa,'' John Underwood, the World's Bank's avian flu adviser, said in a Jan. 9 statement. ``The disease has become widespread in Nigeria, and there are several other countries where the threat is pretty big.'' To contact the reporter on this story: Jason Gale in Singapore at j.gale@bloomberg.net Last Updated: January 15, 2007 00:49 EST Link to comment
Cat Posted January 16, 2007 Share Posted January 16, 2007 MSNBC.com ------------------------- Bird flu spreading again in Asia 4 deaths reported in Indonesia; virus active in Vietnam and Thailand Reuters Updated: 3:43 p.m. ET Jan 15, 2007 JAKARTA - An Indonesian hospital was on Monday overwhelmed with patients suffering bird flu symptoms as the disease spread further in Vietnam and Thailand reported its first case in poultry in six months. But farm ministry officials in Japan said there was no evidence of the disease spreading there following confirmation at the weekend of a bird flu outbreak at a poultry farm in the southwest in which 3,800 chickens died. A recent spurt of infections of the H5N1 bird flu virus, which re-emerged in Asia in late 2003, has alarmed health officials. Four Indonesians have already died this year after a six-week lull in cases, taking the number of human deaths from bird flu in the country to 61, the highest in the world. At Jakarta’s Persahabatan hospital, where doctors were treating 9 people with bird flu symptoms, including a 5-year-old girl in intensive care, its isolation wards were overwhelmed. “If we get more patients, we will send them to Sulianti Saroso,” Muchtar Ichsan, the head of the bird flu ward, told Reuters, referring the country’s main bird flu treatment center in North Jakarta. The patients included the son and husband of a woman who died of bird flu last week. The 18-year-old son has been confirmed to have the disease, signaling a cluster case, although tests so far on the husband show he does not have the virus. U.S. threat An infectious disease expert at John Hopkins University said a bird flu pandemic remains a threat that the U.S. health care system must take seriously despite less frequent media coverage and the absence so far of human cases in the United States. John Bartlett of John Hopkins University said the decentralized U.S. health system will make it more difficult to get ready for a possible human pandemic of H5N1 avian virus — or anything else. He denied the threat from bird flu has been overstated by the media. “The number of cases in 2006 was more than it was in 2005, which is more than it was in 2004 ... so it continues to go up in people,” he said in an interview. The H5N1 virus is steadily changing and could at any time acquire the changes it needs to be easily transmitted from human to human. It would then spark a pandemic that could kill millions within months. Bird flu as an issue in the United States suffered from ”press fatigue” in the absence of new things to say about the health threat, he said. Adding to regional worries in Asia, a senior Thai agriculture official said on Monday that 1,900 ducks had been culled in the northern province of Phitsanulok after some of the birds had tested positive for H5N1. The case is Thailand’s first in birds since last July. The last human death — the country’s 17th — occurred in August. Experts fear the H5N1 virus could mutate into a form that could spread easily between people, but there has been no evidence of human-to-human transmission of the virus so far in the latest cases. Emergency levels The World Health Organization (WHO) says the spike in cases in the northern hemisphere winter follows a similar pattern to that seen over the past three years and was to be expected. But it was encouraging that outbreaks were being quickly reported and dealt with, a senior WHO official said. “It is not surprising that we are seeing an increase (in cases) ... but we are seeing much more effective responses than we were a few years ago,” Keiji Fukuda, WHO’s coordinator for the global influenza program, told journalists. In Vietnam, where bird flu has killed 42 of the 93 people infected since 2003, the virus appeared to be spreading fast among fowl in the country’s southern Mekong Delta, threatening to engulf the major rice-growing region. The Animal Health Department said in a report seen on Monday that tests showed H5N1 had killed ducks in the province of Soc Trang, just a day after bird flu was found in the neighboring province of Tra Vinh. The Agriculture Ministry has ordered an additional poultry vaccination campaign in the Mekong Delta area and requested reinforcement of animal health teams to contain the spread. Agriculture officials have warned the country’s 84 million people that the virus could spread to all 64 cities and provinces nationwide via migrating birds. Indonesia planned to prohibit people from keeping backyard fowl in three high-risk provinces. “We are taking the step because the current condition has reached emergency health levels,” Aburizal Bakrie, coordinating minister for welfare, told a news conference. Millions of chickens live in close proximity to humans in Indonesia and bans on backyard fowl could be difficult to enforce. Health education campaigns are patchy and power has been increasingly devolved to the provinces. Past campaigns to cull poultry have met with stiff resistance because little or no compensation has been paid. WHO says H5N1 has infected 265 people and killed 159 of them in 10 countries since 2003 and has urged vigilance as the disease continues to circulate among birds. China and Egypt have reported new human cases in recent weeks and Nigeria last week culled around 20,000 chickens in the latest outbreak among poultry. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16635479/ Link to comment
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