Manitoba_Rancher
Well-known member
Was reading through the news and came across this news. Almost scary to think this could be starting to jump from human to human. Even with BSE concerns... we should all be working to promote safe beef.
Bird flu case raises fears of human transmission
Associated Press
HANOI, Vietnam — A 26-year-old nurse who cared for a bird flu patient has contracted the deadly virus, but it's unclear whether he caught the disease from his patient, a Vietnamese health official said Monday.
The nurse — Vietnam's fifth case in the past two weeks — is more likely to have caught the disease outside the hospital, the health official said. The man was from northern Thai Binh province, the site of four of the five recent cases. He is the first medical worker known to have been infected by the disease.
"We are investigating this case," said Pham Van Diu, director of the provincial Preventive Medicine Center.
"But it's more likely that he contracted the disease while visiting his girlfriend in the district during Tet where poultry were served and bird flu outbreaks were reported," he said.
A severe form of bird flu has infected and killed 46 people from Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia, since it began ravaging poultry farms across the region starting in Dec. 2003.
Experts fear that if the virus mutates into a form that can easily pass among people, it would cause the world's next pandemic, killing millions of people.
So far there has been no evidence it has acquired that ability, with most bird flu infections apparently stemming from contact with sick poultry. A case of limited human-to-human transmission, between a mother and daughter, was recorded in Thailand but the virus had not changed its form.
Test results late last week showed that the 26-year-old nurse had contracted the severe H5N1 strain of the virus, Diu said.
The man was admitted to the tropical diseases unit at Hanoi's Bach Mai Hospital on Feb. 28 and is in stable condition, the unit's doctor said on condition of anonymity.
The hospital also is treating a 21-year-old man and his 14-year-old sister, also from Thai Binh, and a 35-year-old woman from Hanoi, she said. A 69-year-old man had died earlier.
Health officials were unsure how the latest victim contracted the disease but said he was working as a nurse at the medical center at Thai Thuy District in Thai Binh province, caring for the 21-year-old man, Diu said.
None of the other health workers at the medical center have developed any signs of the disease, he said.
Fourteen people have died in Vietnam since the bird flu reemerged in the country at the end of last year. Vietnam has had the highest total number of deaths from the disease — 33 so far.
Health experts at a conference in Vietnam last month warned that the bird flu virus is now entrenched in poultry in many parts of Asia, including Indonesia, Thailand, and China.
They said the long-term strategy for control includes minimizing contact between people and poultry, including ducks, which can carry the virus with no symptoms. That will be a challenge in much of Asia, since most farmers raise chickens on a small-scale in their backyards.
Northern Thai Binh province, which has been a hotbed for the virus with two deaths and four other infections reported since December, is typical of most rural areas.
"There is much backyard poultry farming in the province. It's therefore very difficult to control," Diu said.
[/b]
Bird flu case raises fears of human transmission
Associated Press
HANOI, Vietnam — A 26-year-old nurse who cared for a bird flu patient has contracted the deadly virus, but it's unclear whether he caught the disease from his patient, a Vietnamese health official said Monday.
The nurse — Vietnam's fifth case in the past two weeks — is more likely to have caught the disease outside the hospital, the health official said. The man was from northern Thai Binh province, the site of four of the five recent cases. He is the first medical worker known to have been infected by the disease.
"We are investigating this case," said Pham Van Diu, director of the provincial Preventive Medicine Center.
"But it's more likely that he contracted the disease while visiting his girlfriend in the district during Tet where poultry were served and bird flu outbreaks were reported," he said.
A severe form of bird flu has infected and killed 46 people from Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia, since it began ravaging poultry farms across the region starting in Dec. 2003.
Experts fear that if the virus mutates into a form that can easily pass among people, it would cause the world's next pandemic, killing millions of people.
So far there has been no evidence it has acquired that ability, with most bird flu infections apparently stemming from contact with sick poultry. A case of limited human-to-human transmission, between a mother and daughter, was recorded in Thailand but the virus had not changed its form.
Test results late last week showed that the 26-year-old nurse had contracted the severe H5N1 strain of the virus, Diu said.
The man was admitted to the tropical diseases unit at Hanoi's Bach Mai Hospital on Feb. 28 and is in stable condition, the unit's doctor said on condition of anonymity.
The hospital also is treating a 21-year-old man and his 14-year-old sister, also from Thai Binh, and a 35-year-old woman from Hanoi, she said. A 69-year-old man had died earlier.
Health officials were unsure how the latest victim contracted the disease but said he was working as a nurse at the medical center at Thai Thuy District in Thai Binh province, caring for the 21-year-old man, Diu said.
None of the other health workers at the medical center have developed any signs of the disease, he said.
Fourteen people have died in Vietnam since the bird flu reemerged in the country at the end of last year. Vietnam has had the highest total number of deaths from the disease — 33 so far.
Health experts at a conference in Vietnam last month warned that the bird flu virus is now entrenched in poultry in many parts of Asia, including Indonesia, Thailand, and China.
They said the long-term strategy for control includes minimizing contact between people and poultry, including ducks, which can carry the virus with no symptoms. That will be a challenge in much of Asia, since most farmers raise chickens on a small-scale in their backyards.
Northern Thai Binh province, which has been a hotbed for the virus with two deaths and four other infections reported since December, is typical of most rural areas.
"There is much backyard poultry farming in the province. It's therefore very difficult to control," Diu said.
[/b]
