H5N1 Re-emergence in Several Patients in Northern Vietnam
Recombinomics Commentary
June 1, 2007
Vietnam confirmed a new human bird flu case Friday as the latest outbreak swept through 14 provinces within the last month.
A worker at a slaughterhouse in Hanoi had tested positive for the H5N1 virus strain, Nguyen Duc Hien, head of the National Institute for Tropical Diseases, said.
He was admitted to the institute May 26, just 12 days after starting to work at the abattoir. Hien said the man was recovering and his condition stable.
Director of Hanoi’s Bach Mai Hospital, Tran Thuy Hanh, said in the past two days two patients had been admitted with typical bird flu symptoms, one of whom had died Friday.
The hospital had taken samples from them for tests, she added.
The above comments signal a re-emergence of human H5N1 cases in northern Vietnam. It seems likely that the two recent cases will be confirmed, raising the number of recent human cases from two to four. Since three of the patients have been hospitalized in the past few days, more cases are likely.
However, sequence data from the recent infections in birds or patients has not been released. In the past, human cases in Vietnam were due to Clade 1 isolates, while all other human cases outside of southeast Asia have been Clade 2.
Release of sequences from the recent human and poultry outbreaks would be useful.
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