Bird Flu - Archives
World Health
Organization
Bird Flu - Dying Young
The
latest study from WHO is not encouraging. Some key points:
- Bird flu tends to kill younger people, mirroring the pattern of the 1918
Spanish flu pandemic. The median age of confirmed cases is 20 years. The
fatality rate is 56%, but among patients aged 10 to 19 years it is 73%.
- The virus is now considered endemic in poultry in some parts of the world,
while continuing to spread to birds in new areas.
- Fatalities from H5N1 have almost tripled this year.
- While cases have occurred all year round, the epidemiological curve of
H5N1 cases has peaked during the cooler periods in the Northern Hemisphere,
suggesting an upsurge in cases in late 2006 or early 2007.
- The risk of the virus evolving into a more transmissible agent in humans
remains high.
July 1st, 2006
WHO Update
Here are
the latest bird flu figures from the World Health Organization, starting
from December 26, 2003. These are confirmed cases only. The recent
controversy over the possibility of 300 bird flu deaths in China has shown
that the actual number of cases could be radically different from the
official figures.
China
– since mid-October there have been 25 bird flu outbreaks in nine provinces.
Altogether, three cases of human infection have been confirmed in China, two
of them fatal.
Indonesia
– a 16-year-old West Java boy is in stable condition in hospital after
suffering from the H5N1 virus. It brings the total number of cases in
Indonesia to 12, of which seven have been fatal. However, two of the boy’s
brothers died before his hospitalization, having displayed similar symptoms.
No samples were taken before their burial, and it cannot be confirmed that
they were bird flu victims.
Vietnam
– the latest case is a 15-year-old boy, who has now been discharged from
hospital and is recovering. Altogether, Vietnam has reported 93 cases of
human infection, including 42 deaths.
Thailand
– the latest case, early in November, was an 18-month-old boy who has
recovered. Thailand has reported 21 cases, with 13 of them fatal.
Cambodia
– the only other country with reported cases of human infection. Cambodia
has had no new reported cases since April this year, and the figure remains
at four cases, all of them fatal.
November 30th,
2005
WHO Updates
WHO has officially
announced another case of bird flu human infection in Thailand, a
seven-year-old boy who has now recovered. It is the country’s 19th
case.
WHO has also reported
that in Indonesia a four-year-old boy has been confirmed as having had bird
flu. He has now recovered. And a man who died at the end of September is now
confirmed as having died of bird flu. These are Indonesia’s sixth and
seventh bird flu cases, with four deaths. This brings to 62 the total number
of deaths since the end of 2003.
Meanwhile,
the
Bangkok Post reports two possible new cases of human bird flu
infection. A poultry farm worker is in hospital in Nakhon Pathom province
and a young girl is being treated in Kanchanaburi province,
October 25th,
2005
North Korea
Knows That Transparency Necessary
WHO
Director-General and Korean national
Lee Jong-wook has told a Seoul press conference that North Korea was
well aware of the threat posed by bird flu.
"When an
avian influenza outbreak was reported in the North last time, we told
Pyongyang that sharing information with WHO and receiving our
medication and equipment would help them," Dr. Lee said. "North Korea knows that it has to handle the case transparently."
In March,
North Korea
reported that it had culled hundreds of thousands of chickens after a
bird flu outbreak at “two or three” farms, including Hadang farm in
Pyongyang, one of the capital city's largest. It did not specify the strain
of flu, but asked
for international assistance. North and South Korean officials have held
government-level talks on the problem. Such meetings are rare, and it
suggests that
North Korea
takes the bird flu threat seriously. In July it was reported that North
Korea had
successfully ended the outbreak, which it said was of the H7 strain.
October 14th, 2005
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