Re: Egyptian girl dies of bird flu
Re: Egyptian girl dies of bird flu
Bird Flu Kills Egyptian Girl, Infects Two Indonesians (Update1)
By Karima Anjani and Dania Saadi
Feb. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Bird flu killed an Egyptian girl and infected two more people in Indonesia. The virus also reemerged in poultry in Russia and may have killed a woman in Azerbaijan.
The H5N1 strain of avian influenza has resurfaced in the U.K., Japan and at least seven other countries in Asia, Europe and Africa the past two months, increasing the risk of human infection and providing chances for the virus to mutate into a pandemic form.
In Indonesia, which has reported the most avian-flu deaths worldwide, the virus infected a man in his 30s and a 15-year-old girl, who may have gotten the virus from a wild bird, a health ministry official said today.
``She caught a wild bird near her home and it was reported the bird died two days later,'' said Joko Suyono, an official at the ministry's avian-flu information center. The girl was admitted to Jakarta's Persahabatan Hospital yesterday, five days after she developed flu-like symptoms, he said.
The H5N1 virus is known to have infected 271 people in 11 countries, killing 165 of them, since 2003, the World Health Organization estimates. The virus is a threat mainly to birds at the moment, though it may mutate and gain the ability to spread between people, experts say.
Indonesia, the world's fourth-most-populous country, has recorded 63 fatalities, 21 more than any other nation. The other patient confirmed today to have tested positive for the H5N1 virus was hospitalized in the city of Bandung in West Java province, Suyono said.
Pandemic Vaccines
The disease entered the U.K. earlier this week when turkeys died at a farm in Suffolk, prompting tighter security measures across Europe.
``The events in recent weeks, especially outbreaks in the U.K. and Hungary, call for even more vigilance,'' French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin said in a statement today.
More than a dozen drug companies worldwide are using H5N1 as the basis for vaccines that would protect people from a pandemic sparked by the virus.
Indonesia wants vaccine makers to seek permission to use viruses collected there to secure access to the shots produced, said Triono Soendoro, director-general of the National Institute of Health Research and Development.
``What we want to avoid happening is being in a position of not being able to afford to buy the vaccines made from our own strain,'' Soendoro said in an interview today. If a pandemic occurs, ``we have to give shots to the poor and the government has to pay that cost. It will be a burden on our budget.''
Egyptian Case
The Indonesian government decided Dec. 20 to restrict access to its live H5N1 viruses after Melbourne-based CSL Ltd. began developing a vaccine based on material collected from an Indonesian patient. Indonesian officials now want companies to sign a so-called material transfer agreement before specimens are released, Soendoro said.
Egypt's health ministry said a 17-year-old girl who died Feb. 4 in the southern province of Fayoum, about 100 kilometers (62 miles) south of Cairo, was the country's 20th human H5N1 case and 12th fatality.
Health authorities weren't able to give her Roche Holding AG's Tamiflu antiviral medicine before she died, ministry spokeswoman Sayid Abbas said over the telephone today.
Tests in Russia
In Russia, the virus killed 45 domestic poultry on farms in Krasnodar territory, Itar-Tass said yesterday, citing Irina Voronkova, an adviser to the head of the regional consumer rights protection agency.
The H5N1 infections are the first in the southern territory this year, the report said. In 2006, more than 300,000 birds died of the virus on one poultry farm, it said.
Tests for the virus are being run on a 38-year-old woman from Azerbaijan's Neftchala region who died late yesterday, the Azeri-Press Information Agency said.
The woman died at the Scientific Institute of Lung Diseases after being hospitalized on Feb. 2 with pneumonia, the news agency reported on its Web site, citing Khayyam Amado, the institute's head physician.
A survey by state veterinary service officials on Feb. 3 found no mass poultry deaths suggestive of avian flu in the village where the woman lived, it said. Poultry samples were sent to the Republic Veterinary Laboratory for testing and results will be reported soon, the news agency said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Karima Anjani in Jakarta at
kanjani@bloomberg.net ; Dania Saadi in Cairo at at
dsaadi2@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: February 6, 2007 08:33 EST
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601080&sid=aF363RM3fVJQ&refer=asia
