9th Confirmed Fatal Bird Flu Case in Vietnam
Recombinomics Commentary
January 21, 2005
>. A 35-year-old woman from the southern Mekong Delta province Dong Thap died Friday, a day after being admitted to the Hospital for Tropical Diseases in Ho Chi Minh City, said Nguyen Ngoc An, director of Dong Thap's Preventive Medicine Centre.
She tested positive for the H5N1 strain of avian flu, An said. The woman developed a high fever a week after slaughtering a duck but none of her family members who ate the bird showed any sign of the disease, An said, adding the woman did not eat the poultry.
An said authorities suspected the woman might also have been infected by stork droppings in her lotus pond where she often worked.
A 17-year-old boy from southern Bac Lieu province, who died Jan. 15, also tested positive for avian flu, a local health official said on condition of anonymity. The boy slaughtered a chicken before showing symptoms, officials said.<<
The death of the 35F and confirmation that the earlier death (17M) was positive for H5N1 bird flu brings the total number of confirmed fatalities to 9. Only one confirmed case, the brother (42M) of the index case (47M) of the likely human to human transmission chain in the north, remains alive. Assuming he continues to improve would generate a case fatality rate of 90% for cases in Vietnam this season.
The younger (35M) brother of the index (47M) and surviving (42M) case above, has not been confirmed, nor have several other suspect cases reported earlier.
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