TRAN VAN MINH 0 Comments Published: April 13, 2010
HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — Two Vietnamese from a poor, mountainous area have been infected with bird flu, and 11 others were quarantined with flulike symptoms, health officials said Tuesday.
A 22-year-old man and a 27-month-old girl remain hospitalized after testing positive for the H5N1 virus, said Hoang Van Linh, deputy director of northern Bac Kan province's health department. He said the 11 others, some of whom were relatives of the confirmed cases, had fallen ill with fever, coughing and shortness of breath.
They were given the antiviral Tamiflu and have since recovered. He said they were tested for bird flu, but the results have not come back.
Dead chickens were reported at the homes of the two patients, and the toddler's family is believed to have slaughtered and eaten some of the infected poultry, according to the Ministry of Health's Web site. Ly Quoc Khach, an infectious disease official from the provincial health department, said all 11 people, members of the Tay and Nung ethnic minorities, had contact with the sick birds, and he said he did not believe there would be any reason to fear possible human-to-human transmission if they did test positive.
The 22-year-old man remains on a respirator after being hospitalized April 2, while the toddler, who was admitted two days later, is in stable condition, Hoang said. All of the sick people's homes in Ma Tao commune have since been disinfected, and the infected poultry have been slaughtered, Ly said.
Vietnam has been hit with a spate of fresh H5N1 outbreaks among poultry, and two people have died from the disease this year, according to the World health Organization, which confirms 59 deaths since late 2003.
The disease remains rare among people, with most cases linked to direct contact with infected poultry. But experts have long feared the virulent virus could mutate into a form that allows it to spread easily among people, possibly igniting a pandemic.
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