Egypt reports H5N1 case in baby girl
Egypt's Minister of Health and Population, Dr. Adel Adawy, today announced a new case of H5N1 avian flu in a 3-month-old girl from Giza governorate, according to Outbreak News Today.
The girl became sick on Sep 22 with a fever, sore throat, cough, and vomiting. Her parents took her to a hospital, where she stayed for 3 days before being released. The child had been exposed to dead birds.
A throat sample was positive for H5N1 avian flu, the report said. The girl received oseltamivir (Tamiflu) and is in stable condition.
The new illness is the country's fifth H5N1 case this year, according to Egyptian health officials, though the World Health Organization has not confirmed any of them.
Sep 30 Outbreak News Today post
Jun 26 CIDRAP News scan on previous Egyptian case
Russia confirms 2 H5N1 outbreaks in backyard flocks
Highly pathogenic H5N1 avian flu has struck backyard flocks in two neighboring villages in southern Russia, the first time the country has reported the disease in birds in 2 years, according to a report today posted by the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE).
The outbreaks—both of which began on Sep 1—likely originated from contact with wild birds, an official from the country's Ministry of Agriculture said in the report.
In the first outbreak, the virus sickened 40 poultry in a village flock of 1,952 chickens, ducks, and geese, killing 4 of them. The remaining 4 sick birds were culled to prevent disease spread.
In the second outbreak, 286 chickens, ducks, and geese died in a flock of 793, and 18 additional birds were culled. All told, 326 birds were infected out of 2,745 susceptible birds, and 322 died. Twenty-two were culled. Officials did not destroy both flocks, however, which is often done with highly pathogenic H5N1.
The villages are in Altai Krai near the country's border with Kazakhstan, a region in Russia's Siberian federal district.
The report concludes, "Probably, hunted ducks and geese trophies had been placed in backyards where mortality occurred later in domestic birds."
Sep 30 OIE report
Study finds higher flu vaccine protection in previously unvaccinated
Results of a 5-year longitudinal study indicate that people not recently vaccinated against influenza have the most protective immune response to the seasonal flu vaccine, according to a study yesterday in Clinical Infectious Diseases that focused on two flu strains.
Researchers from Wisconsin and the CDC assessed data from the 2004-05 through 2012-13 flu seasons that included 7,315 enrollments, 1,056 of which (14%) were positive for H3N2 and 650 (9%) for influenza B. They calculated vaccine effectiveness (VE) for participants aged 9 years and older using logistic regression.
They found that vaccination during the current season only, previous season only, or both seasons yielded similar protection against H3N2 (adjusted VE range, 31%-36%) and B (52%-66%).
When they analyzed 5 seasons' data, however, they determined that current-season VE against H3N2 was significantly higher among those who had not received a vaccine in the previous 5 years (65%) compared with those who had frequently received the vaccine (24%, P = .01). VE against influenza B was 75% and 48%, respectively (P = .05). They had similar results when they restricted their analysis to adults aged 49 and younger.
The authors conclude, "Additional studies are needed to understand the long-term effects of annual vaccination."
Sep 29 Clin Infect Dis abstract
