Laos woman dies of suspected Bird flu

A 42 year old Laos woman, who was suspected to be second human victim of bird flu has died today at the hospital around 2:30pm, according to the World Health Organization.

The woman, resident of capital province of Vientiane, was admitted to hospital on March 2 after developing a fever and pneumonia and got tested for H5N1 stain.

Dr Bounlay Phommasack, an official from the Lao Health Ministry said that the tests were conducted by Laos' National Center for Laboratory and Epidemiology, and a clinical specimen was also sent to the WHO reference laboratory for verification and confirmation.

It will take about six more days to know if she has the virulent H5N1 subtype, Bounlay added. Though he is confident that the woman has H5N1 stain as she lived near a village which had poultry infected with the virus.

The deceased woman’s close family members and hospital staff are being observed closely and were also given oseltamivir as a post-exposure measure. None has shown any sign of infection till now.

The country saw the first case of bird flu in humans when a 15 year old girl got infected with the virus late last month who lived outside Vientiane, where an outbreak of H5N1 in poultry was confirmed. She is at present being treated in the Thai hospital and is stated to be in stable condition. The authorities deny having any direct connection between the two cases.

In early 2004, Laos reported of bird flu virus across its farms in Vientiane and in the two provinces bordering Vietnam. At least 150,000 chickens were slaughtered.

H5N1 is mainly spread by domestic poultry, both through the movements of infected birds and poultry products and through the use of infected poultry manure as fertilizer or feed. Humans with H5N1 typically catch it from chickens, which were in turn infected by other poultry or waterfowl.

Vaccination is the most effective way to reduce the suffering and death caused by influenza, however, currently there is no vaccine available to protect humans against the H5N1 avian influenza.

United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is funding three vaccine makers for the development of pandemic and pre-pandemic flu vaccines, GlaxoSmithKline PLC and Swiss-based Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics, Inc. and Maryland-based IOMAI Corporation.

Experts fear that the virus, which currently spreads to humans due to contact with infected birds, could easily mutate into one that could transmit by contact between humans as well, like the common cold virus, and result in a human pandemic. As it is, the total number of human fatalities stands at 167 out of the 275 infected so far, according to the figures given by WHO.