Medical News Today
On Thursday the Vietnamese authorities reported that a duck farmer has died of bird flu, coinciding with reports that a two-year-old boy in Cambodia has also died of the virus this week.
The Vietnamese victim died on 11 January. According to the authorities this was the first human death from avian flu for nearly two years. The farmer kept ducks in the Mekong delta province of Hau Giang, but experts have yet to establish whether he caught the virus from his birds, according to an AFP report from Hanoi.
The Cambodian toddler died early on Wednesday. He is the 17th person in Cambodia to die from bird flu, where fewer than 20 people are known to have become infected with the deadly H5N1 virus.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the boy came from Banteay Meanchey Province. His symptoms started on 3 January and he was admitted to hospital on the 9th. He was being treated with oseltamivir (Tamiflu).
There have been reports that the boy may have caught the virus from sick poultry in his home village.
These recent reports of deaths from H5N1 follow news in late December that a person in China had died of bird flu, their first victim in over 18 months, and reports last week that in Indonesia the virus has recently claimed the lives of three people in three months.
In Cambodia, the National and local Rapid Response Teams (RRT) are investigating the outbreak following national protocol, says the WHO. Hospital staff who had contact with the boy have been offered oseltamivir (Tamiflu), but so far none of the people he came into contact with have tested positive for H5N1.
The Vietnamese authorities said people should not be alarmed because they have the situation under control.
Le Minh Hung, a doctor from the Health Department of Ho Chi Minh City, said healthcare teams had been sent to check the situation in southern Vietnam, reports AFP.
According to the WHO, most cases of human infection by H5N1 have been linked to direct or indirect contact with infected live or dead poultry such as chickens and ducks.
There is no evidence that H5N1 spreads to humans through food that has been properly cooked.
"Controlling the disease in animals is the first step in decreasing risks to humans," says the UN agency.
Evidence suggests some antiviral drugs, notably oseltamivir (Tamiflu) can reduce the time the virus spends multiplying in the body and thereby improve the prospects for survival.
However, researchers from the Cochrane Collaboration and the BMJ have recently questioned Tamiflu's clinical effectiveness.
Keeping a close eye on the progress of H5N1 infections in humans is a top priority for health agencies worldwide.
At present H5N1 does not transmit easily from infected birds to humans, nor from human to human.
Many experts worldwide believe it is just a matter of time before it evolves into a form that does, leading to a global pandemic with ghastly consequences.
"The H5N1 AI virus remains one of the influenza viruses with pandemic potential, because it continues to circulate widely in some poultry populations, most humans likely have no immunity to it, and it can cause severe disease and death in humans," says the WHO.
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