Suspect H5N1 Fatality in Son La Vietnam
Recombinomics Commentary
December 25, 2007
A Health Ministry official told a government meeting on Tuesday the child had a fever and serious pneumonia after eating chicken which died of unknown cause in the mountainous province of Son La, the Voice of Vietnam radio said.
It said the child died in a hospital in Hanoi but gave no gender. Doctors were testing to see if the H5N1 bird flu virus was the killer, the ministry official was quoted as saying.
The above comments describe a suspected H5N1 fatal infection of a four year old child. This year there have been seven H5N1 cases in Vietnam. The latest WHO update on Vietnam describes the five most recent cases. Only one survived.
These cases have been in northern Vietnam. HA and NA sequences have just been released form one of these patients. These are clade 2.3 (Fujian strain). The HA sequences of A/Viet Nam/HN31242/2007 are closely related to a set of 18 duck sequences isolated this year from a number of northern provinces in Vietnam (see list below).
It is likely that the case described above has also been infected by the Fujian strain, which is widespread in China. If so, the case fatality rate for the six most recent cases is 83%.
Recently Hong Kong reported the deaths of H5N1 positive wild birds. Last year there were also H5N1 wild bird deaths in Hong Kong, which were due to the Fujian strain. It is likely that the recent deaths signaled additional movement of the Fujian strain into northern Vietnam.
In the past, H5N1 infections in northern Vietnam increase at the beginning of the calendar year. Therefore this case, if infected with the Fujian strain, is cause for concern.
The related duck isolates are listed below.
ISDN261597 A/Duck/Nche An/NCVD-70/2007
ISDN261598 A/Duck/Nghe An/NCVD-71/2007
ISDN261596 A/Duck/Ninh Binh/NCVD-68/2007
ISDN261584 A/Duck/Ha Tinh/NCVD-53/2007
ISDN261585 A/Duck/Ha Tinh/NCVD-54/2007
ISDN261586 A/Duck/Nam Dinh/NCVD-55/2007
ISDN261587 A/Duck/Nam Dinh/NCVD-56/2007
ISDN261588 A/Duck/Nam Dinh/NCVD-57/2007
ISDN261590 A/Duck/Nam Dinh/NCVD-60/2007
ISDN261591 A/Duck/Nam Dinh/NCVD-61/2007
ISDN261592 A/Duck/Nam Dinh/NCVD-62/2007
ISDN261593 A/Duck/Nam Dinh/NCVD-63/2007
ISDN261594 A/Duck/Nam Dinh/NCVD-64/2007
ISDN261580 A/Duck/Nighe An/NCVD-49/2007
ISDN261581 A/Duck/Nighe An/NCVD-50/2007
ISDN261595 A/Muscovy Duck/Bac Giang/NCVD-66/2007
ISDN261583 A/Muscovy Duck/Ha Noi-52/NCVD-51/2007
ISDN261582 A/Muscovy Duck/Ha Noi/NCVD-51/2007
Media Links
Recombinomics Presentations
Recombinomics Publications
Recombinomics Paper at Nature Precedings