Health
Asian bird flu hitting people, too
NEWS IN BRIEF — Posted Feb. 2, 2004
The World Health Organization has joined governments across Asia in tackling an outbreak of bird flu that has killed at least three people in Vietnam and led to the slaughter of more than 1 million chickens across the region. Several more suspected human cases were being investigated in Vietnam.
Laboratory results confirmed the presence of avian influenza virus H5N1 in the three patients who died of severe respiratory illness in late December 2003 and early January 2004, and work is beginning on the development of a strain of the virus that can be used to produce a vaccine if necessary.
Avian influenza viruses do not normally infect species other than birds and pigs. But a human case of infection with the H5N1 avian virus occurred in Hong Kong in 1997, and it was determined that the virus had jumped directly from birds to humans. Concerned public health officials called for the rapid destruction of all Hong Kong poultry, and it is believed that this may have averted a pandemic.
The H5N1 strain has been partially sequenced, and all the genes were found to be of avian origin, indicating that the virus that caused the three deaths had not yet acquired human genes. The acquisition of human genes increases the likelihood that a virus of avian origin can be readily transmitted from one human to another.
Of the 15 avian influenza virus H subtypes, H5N1 is of particular concern because of its ability to rapidly mutate and its propensity to acquire genes from viruses infecting other animal species.
Note: This item originally appeared at http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2004/02/02/hlbf0202.htm.
