Continued Exponential Spread of Bird Flu in Vietnam
Recombinomics Commentary
January 23, 2005
>> Since January, bird flu has stricken 404 communes of 25 cities and provinces nationwide, killing and leading to the forced culling of more than 557,600 fowls, according to the Department of Animal Health<<
The spread of bird flu in Vietnam continues to accelerate. The number of communes affected was reported as 25 on Jan 7. The number jumped to 112 on Jan17, to 160 on Jan 19, 179 on Jan 20, 232 on Jan 22, and 404 today.
The same type of increase was seen for poultry killed or culled this month. The number was 130,000 on Jan 12, jumped to 254,000 on Jan 17, 296,000 on Jan 19, 504,000 on Jan 22, and 557,600 today.
The number of confirmed cases is also increasing. Of the 10 confirmed cases, 4 are linked to two clusters of likely human to human transmission of avian influenza. One cluster involved 3 brothers who sequentially developed symptoms about 10 days apart (from Jan 1 to Jan 20).
The exponential spread of bird flu suggests more human cases will be reported, as well as more human to human transmission.
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