Avian Influenza (Bird Flu)

(CIDRAP News) – A teen-age girl with no known exposure to infected poultry has died of H5N1 avian influenza, and a 40-year-old woman has tested positive for the virus, Vietnamese authorities said today.

(CIDRAP News) – A 28-year-old man has become Cambodia's second person to die of avian influenza, health authorities there announced today.

Three universities have begun recruiting volunteers for the first US clinical trial of a vaccine against H5N1 avian influenza, a key piece of the government's efforts to stave off a potential flu pandemic.

(CIDRAP News) – A Vietnamese newspaper has reported that 195 people in an area affected by H5N1 avian influenza have suspicious symptoms and are being tested for the disease.

(CIDRAP News) – A 5-year-old boy from central Vietnam has tested positive for H5N1 avian influenza, becoming the 25th Vietnamese to contract the disease since late December, according to a Vietnamese newspaper.

The boy, named Hoang Trong Duong, is from Quang Binh province and was hospitalized Mar 15 in Hue with high fever, cough, and lung infection, according to Than Nien News, a Ho Chi Minh City newspaper. He was in stable condition.

(CIDRAP News) – A second Vietnamese nurse who had cared for an avian influenza patient was reported to have a suspected case of the illness 2 days ago, but a Vietnamese newspaper said today that the nurse is free of the virus.

The nurse, a 41-year-old woman from Thai Binh province, was hospitalized in Hanoi Mar 10 with a high fever, cough, and a lung infection, according to a Mar 12 Associated Press (AP) report.

(CIDRAP News) – The recent series of cases of avian influenza in a single province in Vietnam has increased concern about whether the nature of the illness is changing.

(CIDRAP News) – The strain of SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) that erupted from obscurity to kill 774 people worldwide has gone quiet, at least for now. Yet its lessons will keep benefiting people even if it never reappears.

(CIDRAP News) – Two relatives of avian influenza patients in northern Vietnam have tested positive for the virus without being sick, according to reports from Vietnam today.

The 61-year-old widow of a man who died of avian flu in late February and the 80-year-old grandfather of two patients currently under treatment in a hospital have tested positive, the Associated Press (AP) and other news services reported. Both are apparently healthy.

(CIDRAP News) – A 26-year-old Vietnamese nurse who helped care for a younger man with H5N1 avian influenza has contracted the illness, but it is unclear whether he acquired it from the patient or from poultry, according to news reports from Vietnam today.