Fifth Bird Flu Death In Vietnam
The World Health Organization confirmed Monday that a fifth person in Vietnam has died after contracting the bird flu that is ravaging chicken farms throughout Asia.
An 8-year-old girl from northern Ha Tay province died from the H5N1 virus on Jan. 17 at the National Hospital for Pediatrics in Hanoi, said WHO spokesman Bob Dietz. She'd been admitted two days earlier, he said.
"We noticed a rapid deterioration in the patient" after the first symptoms on Jan. 11," Dietz said. "By Jan. 17, this young girl was dead. This is a pretty aggressive form of disease. And it's certainly cause for concern."
So far, the WHO has confirmed the H5N1 strain of bird flu in five fatal cases. All the victims were from the northern region around Hanoi. However, Vietnam has reported at least 18 suspected cases and 13 deaths possibly linked to the disease.
Health officials believe patients contracted the disease through contact with the sick birds' droppings. There has been no evidence of person-to-person transmission.
However, health officials warn that if the virus mutates to allow human transmission, it could make the disease a bigger health crisis than SARS, which killed nearly 800 people worldwide last year.
The spread of avian flu, along with the re-emergence of severe acute respiratory syndrome - with three recent cases confirmed in China - has put Asia on a region-wide health alert.
The WHO has sent a team of international experts to Hanoi to investigate the avian influenza, which has resulted in the deaths or slaughter of about 2 million chickens in Vietnam.
The virus has also infected millions of chickens in South Korea and Japan, where governments have ordered mass slaughters to contain the flu's spread.
In Vietnam, the disease has hit chicken farms in 15 provinces. Most of the chicken infections - about a million - have been reported in two southern provinces, Tien Giang and Long An.
No human cases have been confirmed in the south, but Vietnamese authorities reported over the weekend that two suspected cases had been admitted to southern Kien Giang Hospital. A 25-year-old man admitted Jan. 13 died on Saturday, while a 21-year-old woman is now improving, a doctor at the hospital said on Monday.
Bird flu's symptoms in humans include high fever, sore throat and a dry cough.
A two-person team from the U.N.'s World Health Organization and its Food and Agriculture Organization has been sent to Ho Chi Minh City to track down the extent of the bird flu.
The H5N1 flu strain was first reported in humans in 1997 in Hong Kong, where 18 people were infected and six died. It cropped up again in Hong Kong last year, infecting two people and killing one of them.
A different strain was reported in the Netherlands in 2003, killing a veterinarian and infecting dozens of people.
By Tini Tran