Commentary
82 Assam India Patients Produce H5N1 Health Alert
Recombinomics Commentary
00:34
December 12, 2008
The alert came in the wake of 82 cases of upper respiratory track infections in humans that were reported from six districts affected by bird flu. However, it was not yet confirmed whether these were bird flu-related cases.
An infection in the upper respiratory track is one of the symptoms of the disease in humans.
“If human beings are affected it would be a bigger disaster than floods or blasts,” health minister Himanta Biswa Sarma told mediapersons here today.
He said that the health department could only handle 100 to 200 cases if the disease were to be transmitted to humans.
The above comments are part of a health alert issued by Dispur in Assam, India. Sixty of the 82 cases described above are in Barpeta (see updated map), where the rate of infection is 30-60 fold greater than other affected areas. However, the higher rate may be due to the proximity of Barpeta to the initial outbreak, so cases in other regions may be lagging. Moreover, the number of cases in Barpeta may be significantly higher, because only 20% of the at risk population has been surveyed.
The H5N1 in Assam has spread rapidly to nine districts (see map), and so far only six have been confirmed, but those that have not been confirmed are adjacent to confirmed areas, and the confirmed outbreaks stretch from the Chirang in the northwest to Dibrugarh in the northeast, in spite of culling 200,000 birds. In Diburgarh alone, 40,000 birds are expected to be culled by Saturday.
In addition, there are confirmed H5N1 outbreaks in neighboring Bangaldesh, and suspected outbreaks in neighboring West Bengal.
However, the large number of symptomatic patients is alarming, and more information on tests on throat swabs would be useful. Last season most cases were not tested because they did not develop pneumonia and recovered.
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