Vietnamese family hospitalized with possible bird flu

Dec 30, 2006, 8:32 GMT

Hanoi ­ Four members of a family in Vietnam's Mekong Delta are being tested for possible avian influenza after being hospitalized with symptoms similar to the disease, a health official said Saturday

Test results would not be available for a week, but if positive for the H5N1 virus, the family would be the first human cases of bird flu in Vietnam for more than a year following a resurgence of the disease in domestic poultry.

The 37-year-old mother and her three sons are in stable condition, according to Dr. To Van Man, director of emergency department of a medical centre in southern Ca Mau province.

'They have been treated in isolation since admission,' Man said. 'We have treated them with Tamiflu although we are not sure if they have bird flu.'

The mother told doctors that her family had eaten a chicken that had died of an unknown disease four days before her oldest son, age 13, fell ill with high fever and trouble breathing. She and her younger sons, ages 7 and 3, became sick soon after.

Vietnam has seen 42 people die of bird flu ­ which is caught from close contact with sick poultry ­ since 2003.

The country had driven the disease into remission through an aggressive poultry vaccination programme, but last week officials confirmed it had returned in three provinces including Ca Mau, 250 kilometres south of Ho Chi Minh City

At least 160 people worldwide have died of the H5N1 virus, which has sparked concern for its potential to become into a widespread human disease.

At this moment, the H5N1 virus is not easily contagious among people, but scientists are watching it closely and say that if the virus is left unchecked, it could mutate to allow human-to-human transmission.

If that happened, the new human virus could quickly spread around the world among people who would have no natural immunity. Previous such influenza pandemics have killed up to 40 million people.

There is no human vaccine for H5N1, but poultry can be inoculated and international health experts have recommended trying to contain the virus in poultry so it does not have a chance to adapt to infect humans more easily.