Bird Flu Mutation Threat

A doctor at Hanoi’s infectious diseases hospital in Vietnam has reportedly claimed the deadly bird flu virus has started to change its form, amid fears it is only a matter of time before human-to-human infections occur.

The BBC’s Panorama program reported that the Hanoi hospital sent samples of the H5N1 virus for overseas testing at the end of last year, with the results showing that the bird flu had mutated.

The likelihood of avian influenza changing to make it easier for the disease to pass directly from one person to another has sparked a massive international effort to contain outbreaks and step up vaccine production.

“I really do hope that the pandemic will not break out this winter because we have not gone through, in our planning machinery that we’ve got in the world at the moment, we’ve not gone through the contingency planning that is necessary,” United Nations Flu Co-ordinator, Dr David Nabarro, told Panorama.

Japan’s Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper reported that Tokyo is considering whether to release 300 million yen (A$3.52 m) in additional funding to help the World Health Organisation (WHO) battle the virus.

Already, Japan has committed A$1.84 m in the fight against fresh infections, while China has also earmarked A$331 m towards health measures.

Girl infected

Beijing has invited the WHO to investigate what could be the country’s first case of human bird flu infection after initially finding that the death of a 12-year-old girl in late October was due to pneumonia.

He Yin was among three people in the village of Wantang, in central Hunan province, believed to have suffered pneumonia.

The girl died but her nine-year-old brother and a school teacher both recovered.

China’s health ministry has issued a statement saying that although initial tests proved negative to bird flu it “cannot rule out the possibility of human infection of H5N1 avian influenza.”

China has had several cases of the flu outbreaks among bird flocks but no human cases have yet been confirmed.

In the northern Liaoning province, officials have culled 370,000 chickens after a fourth outbreak in three weeks killed nearly 9,000 birds.

Indonesia, one of four Southeast Asian nations where human infections have occurred, authorities have confirmed a fifth fatality from the H5N1 virus.

More than 60 people have died since late 2003 among a total 122 cases across Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia.


SOURCE: World News