Bangladesh Bird Flu Update -Infected Child Recovers

Bangladeshi health officials reported on Thursday that a toddler who became infected with the extremely infectious H5N1 bird flu virus, also known as Avian influenza, has recovered after treatment.

According to a spokesman for the Department of Health, a 16-month-old child in Dhaka- the capital - was infected by the virus last January and suffered respiratory problems. The child infected with bird flu, the country's first reported human case of the virus, was cured by two weeks of treatment, the health official added.

"The child was found infected by H5N1 but after treatment he has recovered and is now doing well," Mahmudur Rahman, director of the Dhaka-based Institute of Epidemiology and Disease Control and Research, told Reuters.

A sample of the victim's blood was sent to the Centre for Disease Control in the United States after the centre in Atlanta had confirmed the presence of the bird flu virus in the child's blood. The child's name, age, or other details were not disclosed by the authorities.

A day after the confirmation of bird flu-infected victim’s recovery, the Geneva-based World Health Organisation (WHO) confirmed the infection on Thursday, citing results from laboratories at the Centres for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta.

Although the boy was totally cured well before the confirmation, authorities in Bangladesh have stepped up surveillance against avian influenza.

With the WHO’s confirmation of infection in the country, Bangladesh has become the 15th country to report a case of human infection.

Bangladesh’s poultry industry encompasses around 150,000 poultry farms, with an annual turnover of $750 million. The poultry industry in Bangladesh is highly vulnerable to Avian Influenza virus because of its geographical location and dependence on chicken imports. Nearly four million people in the country are directly or indirectly associated with poultry farming.

In spite of Bangladeshi government’s extreme efforts to check the spread of bird flu infection, lack of awareness and extreme poverty among the farming and domestic poultry-owning community is making the efforts immensely difficult to give any results.

H5N1, also known as A(H5N1), is a subtype of the Influenza A virus that is capable of causing illness in many animal species, including humans, while a bird-adapted strain of H5N1, called HPAI A(H5N1) for "highly pathogenic avian influenza virus of type A of subtype H5N1", is the causative agent of H5N1 flu, commonly known as "avian influenza" or simply "bird flu", and is endemic in many bird populations, especially in Southeast Asia.

The H5N1 virus though remains primarily a virus of birds, but experts fright that once it starts transmitting from person to person, it would sweep the world, leaving millions more to die and triggering a devastating human pandemic.

Since the deadly H5N1 strain re-emerged in Asia in 2003, it has infected more than 382 people and killed 241 of them, mostly in Southeast Asia. The outbreaks have been confirmed in around 50 countries and territories, and Indonesia is the hardest hit regions of all, with 108 of the deaths, according to data from the World Health Organization.