Another Mild Bird Flu Case in Northern Vietnam
Recombinomics Commentary
March 17, 2005
>> A person from Vietnam's northern Bac Ninh province has just been hospitalized for being suspected of contracting bird flu virus strain H5N1, according to local newspaper Pioneer on Thursday.
The patient, admitted to the Institute of Tropical Diseases here on Wednesday, is in relatively good health condition. <<
Another admission of a suspect bird flu case in a northern Vietnam province continues to highlight the differences in disease severity in reported patients in northern Vietnam and southern Vietnam. Some of this difference may be due to the sensitivity of the H5N1 PCR test. The test in the south appears to detect only the 20% of the cases with the highest H5N1 level at the time of sample collection. However, repeated false negatives in the north suggest that the PCR test there may be equally poor.
The north has reported two more discharges, so the case fatality rate in the north for confirmed cases is below 20%. In contrast, the rate remains at 100% for the south, although some discharged patients may have been reported to WHO. The details on the discharged patients have not been made public.
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