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**Mingus** · December 30, 2006, 12:07 AM

Re: Vietnamese family in hospital with bird flu symptoms

When was the latest human cases in Viet-nam ? Thanks (see next post)

**AlaskaDenise** · December 30, 2006, 12:09 AM

Re: Vietnamese family in hospital with bird flu symptoms

Vietnam reports first suspected bird flu cases in humans in a year

The Associated Press
Friday, December 29, 2006

Four members of a family in southern Vietnam have been hospitalized with symptoms of bird flu, a doctor said Saturday, the first suspected human cases in the country in more than a year.

A 36-year-old woman and her three children aged three to 13 were admitted to Nam Can Hospital in Ca Mau province this past week with fevers, coughing, decreased white blood cells and damaged lungs, said Ho Van Van, a doctor at the hospital.

The family had four chickens and five ducks, and ate one of the chickens, which had fallen sick and died, on Dec. 23, he said.

Swab samples from the four patients are being tested for the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu, Van said. Health officials have disinfected the family's house and neighborhood, he added.

Vietnam has been widely seen as a model for how to fight bird flu using extensive vaccinations of poultry, careful surveillance and slaughters of birds in affected areas.

However, earlier this month, it reported its first bird flu outbreaks in poultry in a year in Ca Mau and two other provinces in the Mekong Delta.

The outbreaks killed or forced the slaughter of more than 13,000 birds in the three provinces.

Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung decided on Friday to send 11 Cabinet members to the provinces to direct the fight against bird flu, Communist Party newspaper Nhan Dan (People) reported Saturday.

Vietnam has recorded at least 42 human deaths from the H5N1 virus since late 2003, according to the World Health Organization. The country's last reports human case was in November 2005.

At least 157 people out of 261 known to have been infected with H5N1 worldwide have died, WHO says.

Most of those who died came into direct contact with sick birds, but experts fear the virus could mutate into a form that can be easily passed among people, potentially sparking a pandemic.

.

**Sharpe** · December 30, 2006, 12:11 AM

Re: 4-6? Family Members Hospitalized in Vietnam w susp H5N1

A decreased WBC count makes the diagnosis of bird flu much more likely than it normally would be, and the fact that it is a family of four and they already have 'damaged lungs' is highly concerning for possibilities of rapid transmission, regardless of whether it is bird-human or human-human.

**Mingus** · December 30, 2006, 12:24 AM

Re: Vietnamese family in hospital with bird flu symptoms

http://www.hemelhempsteadtoday.co.uk...sectionid=5055

Vietnamese family in hospital with bird flu symptoms
HANOI (Reuters) - Four members of a Vietnamese family have been hospitalised with symptoms of bird flu after eating sick chickens in the country's south, where the disease re-emerged in poultry earlier this month.
The mother and her three children, aged between 3 and 13, all suffered from high fever, coughing and lung infection. They are being treated at Nam Can Hospital in the southern province of Ca Mau.

"Their samples have been sent for bird flu tests in Ho Chi Minh City and results should be available soon," an official at the Ca Mau Provincial Animal Health Department said on Saturday.

Ca Mau, Bac Lieu and Hau Giang are the three Mekong delta provinces where thousands of ducks and chickens have been slaughtered since the latest bird flu outbreaks were first detected on December 11.

Agriculture officials this week said the risk of recurrence elsewhere was high because of migration of wild birds and poultry smuggling.

The government has ordered animal health authorities and police to tighten control of poultry transport, particularly in the provinces bordering China. Officials fear the H5N1 avian flu virus could re-emerge during the Lunar New Year festival when poultry consumption rises.

The latest outbreaks are the first in Vietnam since August.

Bird flu has <iframe style="display: none;" src="http://www.hemelhempsteadtoday.co.uk/DartIframePage.aspx?articleid=1950537&sectionid=50 55&&IsEditorialSectionSpecific=True&KeyValueInputT ypes=Static&KeyValueNames=pos&KeyValueSources=mpu& Zone=editorial&SitecodeVarName=Sitecode&HtmlTempla teLocation=c:%5Cinetpub%5CDartBannerDlls%5CTemplat e%5CDartHtmlTemplate.html&AdsWidth=300&AdsHeight=2 50&RandomNumber=7254520" class="dartiframe" title="Advertisement Frame" id="WctlDartHtml4" frameborder="0" height="250" scrolling="no" width="300"> </iframe>
killed 42 of the 93 people infected in Vietnam.

The Southeast Asian country, which has had no reported human infections since late 2005, has the world's second highest death toll after Indonesia, where 57 people have died, according to the World Health Organisation.

The WHO says bird flu has killed 157 people out of 261 infected globally since late 2003.

(c) Reuters 2006. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by caching, framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters and the Reuters sphere logo are registered trademarks and trademarks of the Reuters group of companies around the world.
Last Updated: 30 December 2006

**Sharpe** · December 30, 2006, 12:53 AM

Re: Vietnamese family in hospital with bird flu symptoms

Map attached. Roughly: Red arrows indicate locations of newly suspected cases. Blue arrows indicate reconfirmations. Other yellow placemarks indicate places that bird flu has been confirmed in 2006. Blue "i"s indicate places where people died of bird flu in the last two months of 2005. Southern Cambodia is visible on the top left.

Attached Files

**Theresa42** · December 30, 2006, 01:14 AM

Re: Vietnamese family in hospital with bird flu symptoms

Make that six.

Hat-tip, AnnieB!

Six suspected bird flu cases in Mekong Delta
Dec 30, 2006

Six people were isolated under suspicion of bird flu infection in the Mekong Delta?s Ca Mau and Soc Trang provinces, all of them reportedly had eaten chickens, said local health officials Friday.

Huynh Trung Kien, acting manager of Ca Mau?s health department said the four cases, all in a family in Nam Can district, were hospitalized with symptoms like coughs and high fever after they consumed chickens last week.

The victims were immediately quarantined with their samples submitted to laboratory for testing, Kien said.

Nguyen Huu Minh, deputy head of the animal health department of Soc Trang reported two people in My Tu district had difficulty breathing after eating chicken.

He added bird flu had yet to spread to Soc Trang and the patients had reportedly eaten healthy poultry.

Minh said the results from tests run on the two had not yet been received.

To date, bird flu has resurfaced in 10 Vietnamese communes in six districts in Ca Mau, Bac Lieu and Hau Giang provinces.

healthyTin, ảnh clip video tin

http://www.thanhniennews.com/healthy/?catid=8&newsid=23759

healthy

**HenryN** · December 30, 2006, 06:01 AM

Re: Vietnamese family in hospital with bird flu symptoms

http://hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/woalert...=9081&lang=eng

(above link includes Google map of area)

Four members of a Vietnamese family have been hospitalised with symptoms of bird flu after eating sick chickens in the country's south, where the disease re-emerged in poultry earlier this month. The mother and her three children, aged between 3 and 13, all suffered from high fever, coughing and lung infection. They are being treated at Nam Can Hospital in the southern province of Ca Mau. "Their samples have been sent for bird flu tests in Ho Chi Minh City and results should be available soon," an official at the Ca Mau Provincial Animal Health Department said on Saturday

**HenryN** · December 30, 2006, 06:56 AM

Re: Vietnamese family in hospital with bird flu symptoms

Commentary at

Suspect H5N1 Clusters In Mekong Delta Vietnam

http://www.recombinomics.com/News/12300601/H5N1_Mekong_Clusters.html

Recombinomics Commentary

**HenryN** · December 30, 2006, 07:24 AM

Re: Vietnamese family in hospital with bird flu symptoms

Originally posted by KBD

It's a shame viroloist Menno de Jong has been away from his HCMC post on vacation in Europe. He would be a great source for information on this.

I suspect this cluster will be confirmed. They were probably already positive with a quicky test, which is probably why the cluster made the news.

It will be interesting to see if this is the Fujian strain, which has caused all of the recent reported human cases in China and has bee previously reported in birds in Thailand. Malaysia, and Laos.

**KBD** · December 30, 2006, 07:34 AM

Re: Vietnamese family in hospital with bird flu symptoms

Hanoi-based AP reporter Margie Mason told me in May that she went to the China-Vietnam border to see the extent of cross-border poultry trade and reported that it was very much alive and well, despite the bans...

**HenryN** · December 30, 2006, 07:54 AM

Re: Vietnamese family in hospital with bird flu symptoms

Originally posted by KBD

Hanoi-based AP reporter Margie Mason told me in May that she went to the China-Vietnam border to see the extent of cross-border poultry trade and reported that it was very much alive and well, despite the bans...

Although there may be plenty of trade, the story is in the sequence. In 2003/2004 all H5N1 from Vietnam, Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia, including human cases were Clade 1. Clade 1 has never been reported in China although MANY H5N1 sequences have ben published. In addition, the isolates had TWO amantadine resistance polymorphisms, also found in all Clade 1 isolates. The two changes have also NEVER been reported in China.

H5N1 is primarily spread by migratory birds.

Trade is just another media myth. It is just another bit player.

Bird migration and recombination remain the name of the game for H5N1 evolution, transport, and transmission. Trade is just a well publicized side show.

**Gert van der Hoek** · December 30, 2006, 07:57 AM

Re: Vietnamese family in hospital with bird flu symptoms

Family in Vietnam tested for bird flu after symptoms

Posted: 30 December 2006 1907 hrs

HANOI : Vietnamese health workers are testing a family for bird flu after they suffered respiratory ailments that could be linked to eating a chicken that died on their farm, officials have said.

A mother and her three children have been in hospital since Monday in far southern Ca Mau, one of three provinces that have seen a resurgence of the H5N1 strain of the virus in poultry flocks this month.

"We received samples of the mother and her three children late Friday and we are testing them," said Phan Van Tu of Ho Chi Minh City's Pasteur Institut. "We will first test for the H5 virus and then, possibly, for the N1 strain."

Results were expected within one or two days, he said.

Ca Mau health department director Huynh Trung Kien said the 37-year-old woman and her three boys aged three, seven and 13 from Nam Can commune had been admitted to Ca Mau clinic on Monday with respiratory difficulties.

"The mother said six chickens owned by her family had died on the same day for unknown reasons and her husband had prepared one of the six chicken for food for the family last Saturday," he said.

"We have already disinfected her family home and neighbouring properties. We have sent veterinary staff to Nam Can commune to check the situation there."

Vietnam has reported no new human cases since November 2005 of the disease that killed 42 people in the country between 2003 and 2005, but animal outbreaks have now been reported in three provinces over the past month.

- AFP/ir

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**KBD** · December 30, 2006, 08:09 AM

Re: Vietnamese family in hospital with bird flu symptoms

This is what Xinhua has:

HANOI, Dec 30, 2006 (Xinhua via COMTEX) -- Six local people in two families from Vietnam's southern region have been hospitalized after showing bird flu symptoms, local media reported Saturday.

A 36-year-old woman named Do Thi Hoa from Nam Can district, Ca Mau province and three of her children aged 3, 7 and 13 had developed fever, cough, tiredness and pneumonia after eating a dead chicken, Young People newspaper said.

The chicken raised by her family, died on Dec. 23 and then was slaughtered by her husband for meal.

Tran Thien Thanh, director of the General Hospital in Nam Can district, said the four people under treatment at the hospital have yet to develop acute respiratory failure symptoms. Specimens from them have been sent to the Pasteur Institute in southern Ho Chi Minh City for bird flu virus testing.

Two people in a family from My Tu district, Soc Trang province have been admitted to the Soc Trang General Hospital after eating chicken, Saigon Liberation newspaper said.

The two people had difficulty in breathing after eating a healthy fighting cock, Nguyen Huu Minh, vice head of the Soc Trang Veterinary Bureau said, noting that the province has not been hit by bird flu so far this year.

Vietnam has detected 93 bird flu patients, including 42 fatalities, in 32 localities, the country's Health Ministry said on Dec. 29, noting that it has seen no new human cases of infections since mid-November 2005.

To prevent bird flu outbreaks among humans, the ministry will launch next month campaigns on cleansing environments and poultry farms, intensify quarantine, and better equip healthcare establishments with bird flu diagnosis and treatment facilities.

Since early this month, a total of 18 communes in nine districts in the three southern provinces of Ca Mau, Bac Lieu and Hau Giang have been stricken by bird flu disease which has led to the culling of over 11,800 fowls in Ca Mau and several thousands in Bac Lieu and Hau Giang, according to the Department of Animal Health under the Vietnamese Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.

Bird flu outbreaks, starting in Vietnam in December 2003, have led to the culling of dozens of millions of fowls. The last outbreak of bird flu among poultry in the country in 2005 was in December.

(ends)

**AlaskaDenise** · December 30, 2006, 08:12 AM

Re: Vietnamese family in hospital with bird flu symptoms

Originally posted by niman

Commentary at

http://www.recombinomics.com/News/12..._Clusters.html

Commentary

Suspect H5N1 Clusters In Mekong Delta Vietnam
Recombinomics Commentary
December 30, 2006

A 36-year-old woman and her three children aged three to 13 were admitted to Nam Can Hospital in Ca Mau province this past week with fevers, coughing, decreased white blood cells and damaged lungs, said Ho Van Van, a doctor at the hospital.

The family had four chickens and five ducks, and ate one of the chickens, which had fallen sick and died, on Dec. 23, he said.

Nguyen Huu Minh, deputy head of the animal health department of Soc Trang reported two people in My Tu district had difficulty breathing after eating chicken.

The above comments described two clusters of suspect H5N1 cases in the Mekong Delta. The cluster in Ca Mau is a familial cluster. These cases in Vietnam, coupled with the outbreaks in South Korea, are similar to reported outbreaks of H5N1 in December, 2003. Vietnam was the first country to report patients with bird flu symptoms, and South Vietnam was the first country to report an H5N1 outbreak.

Although the two outbreaks in December, 2003 were close in time, genetically the H5N1 was readily distinguishable. The isolates from Vietnam were Clade 1 (see phylogenetic tree of vaccine targets), while Korea was Clade 2. Included in the differences were two amantadine resistance changes in the M2 of the Clade 1 isolates. Clade 1 isolates were subsequently found in neighboring countries (Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia). In 2003/2004 Clade 2 isolates were reported in Japan, multiple provinces in China, and Indonesia. More recently, the Fujian strain (Clade 2 sub-clade 3) migrated into the region and has been detected in Vietnam, Thailand, Laos, and Malaysia. It is also widespread in China and found in all reported human cases in China in 2005/2006.

H5N1 subsequently spread outside of the region after the Qinghai strain (Clade 2 sub-clade 2) was detected at Qinghai Lake in May, 2005. It was carried by long range migratory birds to countries to the west of China, including Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Those birds are now migrating south, and the recent outbreaks of H5N1 in South Korea have been the Qinghai strain, which has genetic similarities with the 2003 isolates from South Korea / Japan.

Thus, the role of migratory birds in the spread of H5N1 is not a new development, and the increased reports of H5N1 in poultry in Korea, and suspect patients in Vietnam. as well as human and bird cases in Egypt, is not a coincidence.

.