March 27, 2006

 

More human deaths from bird flu in China, Indonesia and Cambodia

 

 

A woman in Shanghai, a 3-year-old girl in Cambodia and a one-year-old in Indonesia became the latest victims to fall prey to bird flu last week.

 

The Chinese Ministry of Health confirmed that a 29-year-old woman in Shanghai has died from bird flu on Friday (24 Mar).

 

The victim, a migrant worker in Shanghai, showed symptoms of fever and pneumonia a week earlier and died on Mar 21.

 

The Shanghai Municipal Center for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed the victim's blood samples tested positive for H5N1. Tests from the national Center for Disease Control (CDC), made in accordance with the standards of the World Health Organization (WHO), were also positive.

 

The report did not say how or where the victim might have been infected with the disease and there has been no confirmation on any outbreak of bird flu among poultry in the city.

 

The woman's death brings the total number of human cases of bird flu in China to 16, with 10 fatalities.

 

China has agreed to share virus samples from bird flu outbreaks in poultry with WHO to help develop anti-bird flu drugs and vaccines, according to WHO officials.

 

Meanwhile, in Cambodia, three people were hospitalised after last week's death of a child from H5N1.

 

The suspected cases come from a neighbouring village to that of a three-year-old, who died after falling ill with the H5N1 strain of the virus.

 

She was the first bird flu death in Cambodia this year and the fifth since 2003.

 

Agriculture ministry officials said tests are being done on poultry in the area, but no traces of H5N1 have been found so far in any birds, despite the deaths of hundreds in the area earlier this month.

 

Cambodia's last outbreak of bird flu in humans occurred in early 2005, while the virus has been found in ducks in eastern Kompong Cham province twice since February.

 

Also, in Indonesia, an official from the Indonesian Health Ministry said last week that local tests confirmed a one-year old baby girl who died in Jakarta on Mar 23 was positive for bird flu virus. It was not clear whether she had contact with poutry, the official added.

 

If confirmed by the World Health Organisation's Hongkong-based laboratory, this will be Indonesia's 23rd bird flu fatality in Indonesia.

 

Globally, there has been a total of 185 human cases of bird flu which caused 104 deaths, according to the WHO's website.