Suspected bird flu patient dies in Beijing hospital

[beast]

Suspected bird flu patient dies in Beijing hospital

Tuesday, January 6, 2009
AP

BEIJING -- A Chinese woman suspected of having bird flu has died in a Beijing hospital, the official Xinhua News Agency reported Tuesday.

Huang Yanqing died Monday after buying and cleaning nine ducks last month at a market in Hebei province, which borders Beijing, the report said. Her age was not known.

Xinhua quoted the Beijing Health Bureau as saying 116 people had been in close contact with Huang. One nurse had a fever but has since recovered, the report said.

The Ministry of Health reported the case to the World Health Organization. A spokeswoman for the organization in Beijing said Tuesday that it did not have any further details.

Bird flu has killed 247 people worldwide since 2003, according to the WHO, including 20 in China out of 30 human cases.

The H5N1 bird flu virus continues to devastate poultry stocks around the world, and officials worry the virus could mutate into a much-feared form that could spread easily among people. It remains hard for people to catch, with most human cases linked to contact with infected birds.

Authorities in eastern China last month slaughtered more than 370,000 fowl after isolated cases of bird flu in chickens were reported.

China, which raises more poultry than any other country, has vowed to aggressively fight the virus.

Beijing officials instituted prevention measures, such as disinfecting and isolating Huang's home, Xinhua said.


Source: http://www.chinapost.com.tw/print/190871.htm

[beast]

A Chinese woman has died of the H5N1 bird flu virus in Beijing, the World Health Organisation (WHO) announced on Tuesday.
The woman, named as Huang Yanqing, died in the Chinese capital on Monday after she fell ill on December 24. According to the official Xinhua News Agency, Huang became ill after buying and cleaning nine ducks in December at a market in Hebei province, which borders Beijing. Xinhua informed that 116 people had been in close contact with Huang and that one of them, a nurse, had contracted a fever but recovered.
 
According to WHO data, released in mid-December, 247 people had died from the bird virus out of 391 cases since the virus resurfaced in Asia in 2003.
Commonly known as the “bird flu” or “avian flu,” avian influenza is a type of influenza caused by certain viruses that have adapted to birds. In 1997, the H5N1 strain adapted to humans and killed six people – it was Hong Kong’s biggest outbreak of the bird flu. Over 300,000 in wholesale and retail and almost 1,000,000 birds in local farms were slaughtered in 2001.
 
The bird flu virus has mutated over the last few years, although it may take some time before it turns into a human-to-human type of virus. The highly pathogenic Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 is causing global concern as a potential pandemic threat. Health experts fear that the co-existence of human flu viruses and avian flu viruses will provide an opportunity for genetic material to be exchanged, creating a new influenza strain that may cause fatal human infections.

 

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Human to Human H5N1 Transmission In Beijing?
Recombinomics Commentary 00:39
January 7, 2009

The Beijing Municipal Health Bureau said 116 people were in close contact with the victim.

One healthcare professional in contact with Huang contracted bird flu, but recovered, the bureau said.

The above comments describe transmission of H5N1 from the fatally infected patient to a health care work, which is a major red flag signaling an increase in transmission efficiency.  Although other media sources acknowledged the fever and recovery in the health care work, none stated that the fever was due to an H5N1 infection.

Transmission to a health care worker is rare.  Most H5N1 H2H transmission involves an index case and family members who are not trained in universal precautions, and have minimal protection.  Therefore, independent confirmation of this transmission would be useful.

H5N1 cases in Beijing are also rare.  The last confirmed case from Beijing was the first confirmed case in mainland China in 2003. That case was due to clade 7 H5N1, which is more common in the Beijing area, which is why it is likely that the latest human case was also caused by clade 7.  The most recent confirmed H5N1 in poultry in mainland China were two outbreaks in Jiangsu, and both were clade 7.

Clade 7 is of concern because it is distinct from other H5N1 that is associated with human infections.  Clade 1 is in southeast Asia and caused human case in Vietnam, Thailand, and Cambodia between 2004-2005.  Although it is still circulating in poultry in southeast Asia, there have been few of any recent clade 1 human cases.  Clade 2.1 is circulating in Indonesia and account for all public sequences, although Indonesia has not released a human H5N1 sequence for the past two years.  Clade 2.2 is carried by wild birds west of China, and have cause human infections in Turkey, Iraq, Azerbaijan, Egypt, Djibouti, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Bangladesh.  Clade 2.3 has cause human cases in China, and more recently in Vietnam and Thailand.

However, prior to the latest case, the only reported clade 7 infection was in Beijing.

If the source of the H5N1 for the latest case was linked to the ducks purchased at the market, then it is possible that they were asymptomatically infected, which would also increase concerns.

Release of sequences from this case, as well as the Jiangsu outbreaks, would be useful as would clarification of the cause of the fever in the health care worker.


Source: http://www.recombinomics.com/News/01070901/H5N1_Beijing_H2H.html