Suspect H5N1 Patient in Peshawar Pakistan
Recombinomics Commentary 14:43
February 3, 2008
The APP quoted a spokesman of Khyber Teaching Hospital (KTH) in Khyber Agency of the tribal areas as saying that a lady had been brought to the hospital with severe viral infections.
He said that the lady was presently kept in Isolation Ward of the hospital, but it was not confirmed that she was infected with the bird flu virus.
The above comments describe a suspect H5N1 patient in northwestern Pakistan. She has been admitted to the same hospital that treated the lab confirmed H5N1 cluster late last year. That cluster represented one of the most sustained H5N1 transmission chain reported to date.
Although the above patient is improving, not all H5N1 develop pneumonia and die. In the earlier cluster four developed pneumonia, but two of the four recovered. Additional H5N1 patients did not develop pneumonia.
Pakistan has issued a high alert across the entire country. Regions of most concerned are in the Punjab region, where the above patient is hospitalized, and Sindh region in the Karachi area, where three farm workers are in isolation (see satellite map here and here).
More detail on the symptoms in the above patient, and exposure to poultry would be useful
Media Links
Recombinomics Presentations
Recombinomics Publications
Recombinomics Paper at Nature Precedings