|
Home>News Center>World | |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
Thailand confirms 10th bird flu death this year
Thailand on Tuesday confirmed its 10th death from bird flu and said the woman may have contracted the virus from her daughter, raising the alarming possibility of human-to-human transmission of the disease. Pranee Thongchan, 26, died Sept. 20 and is confirmed to have contracted the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus, Charal Trinwuthipong, director general of the Disease Control Department, told reporters. She is the 10th confirmed human fatality from the virus in Thailand this year. An additional 19 people died in Vietnam, and tens of millions of chickens and other poultry have been killed by the disease or culled to curb its spread through much of eastern Asia. Most human cases have been traced to contact with sick birds and while human-to-human transmission was suspected in some Vietnamese cases, it was never confirmed. Scientists fear a pandemic if the virus mutates to create a form that could easily jump from one human to another. However, medical experts say there is no evidence to confirm this has happened yet, and Thai officials said if Pranee got the virus from her daughter it would have been an isolated case due to her very close contact with her sick daughter. Pranee's 11-year-old daughter Sakuntala died Sept. 12 in what is also ``believed'' to have been a case of avian influenza, but that cannot be confirmed because her body was cremated before tests could be done, Charal said. Sakuntala ``was a probable avian influenza case who could have contracted the virus from chickens which died in her house and village,'' a Public Health Ministry statement said. It said Pranee may have ``either contracted the virus from the environment in the village where the chickens died, or from the sick daughter who she was taking care of very closely at the hospital for a long period of time.'' Pranee's sister, Pranom, 32, was confirmed Monday as suffering from bird flu, and is now in hospital in an isolation ward. The two sisters had been tending to Sakuntala in hospital before her death. Pranee is the second Thai confirmed to have died of the disease since it resurfaced in July. Eight others died in the first round of the avian influenza that surfaced in January. Pranee lived outside Bangkok while her daughter lived in the northern province of Kamphaenphet, where she had come in contact with chickens. The Thai government played down any fears of human-to-human transmission, saying it appeared to be a one-off case. The ministry statement said if Pranee had contracted the disease from her daughter it would have been due to ``very close and prolonged face to face exposure.'' ``There is no evidence to suggest that the virus has mutated or re-assorted. This probable human-to-human transmission of avian influenza was related to a single index case and was limited within a family.'' No other members of the village where Sakuntala lived, or health care workers in the hospitals where she and her mother were admitted are so far found to be ill, the statement said. ``Although the finding of probable human-to-human transmission is clearly of concern, there is currently no evidence of ongoing chains of transmission or risk to persons outside the affected provinces,'' it said. On Monday, a joint statement by two U.N. agencies said: ``The avian influenza epidemic in Asia is a 'crisis of global importance' and will continue to demand the attention of the international community for some time to come. More research is urgently needed as the role of wildlife, domestic ducks and pigs in transmitting the virus among animals is still not fully understood, said the statement by the Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Organization for Animal Health. It also said that more research is urgently needed as the role of wildlife,
domestic ducks and pigs in transmitting the virus among animals is still not
fully understood. |
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
