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H5N1Wild Bird Flu in a Patient in Israel?
Recombinomics Commentary
November 24, 2005
A resident of northern Israel may have contracted bird flu, the Health Ministry has reported. The man underwent a blood test, after a previous test indicated "further tests" were necessary to clarify his condition.
The man has recovered from the illness he was suffering from and released to his home, but preliminary tests reveal he may still be suffering from bird flu.
The above comments suggest that the patient has tested positive for H5N1 bird flu. These results are cause for concern. Although prior boxun reports suggeste the H5N1 wild bird flu at Qinghai Lake could cause human cases and fatalities, human cases were not reported in Russia. Kazakhstan, Mongolia, or European countries reporting H5N1 wild bird flu.
However recently China has confirmed H5N1 in patients in Anhui and Hunan and a case in Liaoning is under investigation. Moreover, recent boxun reports cite 77 H5N1 human fatalities in Liaoning.
The Middle East is of considerable concern because of the large number of migratory birds that pass through the Middle East when migrating from Europe to Africa. Although Israel has not report confirmed cases of H5N1, tyhey have reported Newcastle Disease, as have many other countries in the Middle East and Europe. In the psat, reports of Newcastle Disease have preceeded H5N1 reports in many counries in Asia. There have been many reports of bird deaths in the Middle East and Eirope (see map)
The Middle East is also of concern because of indiginous H9N2. Those isolates contain doner sequences for the HA polymorphism S227N which could be formed via recombination with H5N1 wild bird flu and H9N2 found in Israel.
There details on the possible Israeli case would be of interest, including the HA sequence of H5N1 in the region.
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