Bird Flu Center

The first human case of infection in China since January 10th was confirmed yesterday, when government authorities announced that a 37 year old farmer in a province in eastern China had contracted the disease. The patient is reported to have recovered, however now a 44 year old farmer was also diagnosed with avian influenza. The first case of human infection with the H5N1 virus was reported in the country in 2005, however, the government last year disclosed that new tests revealed that a soldier that had died in 2003 had also been infected with the virus.

Chinese scientists have reported the discovery of bird flu traces in sparrows, raising new question about the virus’ nature and the way it is spread. Sparrows are common, non-migratory birds and live in the Chinese mainland and until now it was believed the only migratory waterfowl can be a carrier and transmitter of the disease. Samples taken from sparrows were tested after an avian influenza outbreak was reported in the province of Henan. Chinese authorities say that there is no reason to believe that these sparrows pose any risk to humans so far.

The quarantine previously imposed in an area from the province of Inner Mongolia has been lifted, as announced by Chinese authorities. The measure had been imposed as a result of a bird flu outbreak that affected the region last month, but now a ceremony was organized to mark the end of the quarantine in Jiuyuan District. The last bird was culled 21 days ago and experts that have been monitoring the area say that no other outbreak of the disease has been observed ever since. The sudden death of nearly 1,000 poultry alerted the authorities on September 27 and testing later confirmed that the birds had been infected with the highly pathogenic H5N1 virus. Over 42 million birds have been vaccinated against avian influenza in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

Only days after confirming the first avian flu outbreak after a 6 weeks quiet period, China has now declared that a new outbreak of H5N1 was detected in poultry from a northern region of the country. The Henan New Village, from the Ningxia region, was reported to see about 1,000 birds die within the last days, and further testing confirmed the presence of the highly pathogenic bird flu virus. Around 70,000 more birds were culled in an effort to contain the spread of the disease. The world’s most populous continent has so far recorded 21 cases of human infections with the virus, of whom 14 perished. However, some believe that the real number of human cases is far greater and that authorities have kept the silence on many of the cases.

China is reporting the first avian influenza outbreak in over six weeks, as poultry were found dead in a province from the far north of the country. 985 chickens died from the disease in a village in the city of Baotou, in Inner Mongolia. The agriculture ministry made the announcement, as almost 9,000 other domestic birds have been culled to prevent the virus from spreading. It is not yet known when did the first sign of the disease appeared, but the virus was confirmed as the highly pathogenic H5N1 on Friday. Quarantine was set up in the area and the outbreak is now under control, authorities say. So far, 21 people have contracted avian influenza, of which 14 died, as official reports say. The last recorded victim occurred in July in the western region of Xinjiang.

A 62 year old man from the Xinjiang region in Western China has died following an infection with the H5N1 strain of the bird flu virus. The farmer was the 21st recorded case of human bird flu infection in the country and its 14th fatality. This includes the case that the government only confirmed last week to have occurred in late 2003, two years before the first publicly announced case. It is believed the farmer contracted the virus after coming into close contact with disease birds. The highly pathogenic virus has killed at least 138 people world wide since 2003.

The curing of the latest bird flu patient in China, a person surnamed Jiang, aged, 31, is claimed to bee owed in some degree to traditional Chinese medicine. The patient made a complete recovery, leaving the hospital on August 2nd, after receiving treatment for a period of about 50 days, in Guangdong province. A Chinese medical expert says during the early days of the man’s treatment, doctors used a special soup prepared by ginseng, a known medicinal herb, as well as another Chinese medicine, which were used to aid the ailing body in fighting the disease. Other Chinese medicines were used to help sustain the function of the lungs. The man had contracted the disease after visiting a local poultry market and coming into close contact with infected birds. He developed fever and pneumonia and was in serious condition when he was taken to hospital, with many of his internal organs showing signs of failure. By June 22nd however, tests revealed the influenza virus was no longer in his system. A few weeks later, he was able to breathe without the aid of a respirator machine.

Denying an attempt to cover up a very early case of bird flu, Chinese authorities blame a lack of communication between its researchers and health officials for failing to announce the country’s first avian influenza victim, in November 2003. Following international suspicions, China analyzed and later confirmed that its first bird flu case and fatality dates from late 2003, two years before it was previously thought the virus had appeared in the country. Research institutes were only required to report bird flu cases from December 2004, when a new law concerning infectious diseased included bird flu as a disease that should be taken into consideration. Also, 2003 saw a massive outbreak of SARS, an illness with symptoms resembling flu, so it was easy to mistakenly diagnose cases.  Chinese officials now hope that such communication problems withing its system will be resolved and claim there is no evidence of other bird flu cases before the one in question.

After admitting that a bird flu case in late 2003 was incorrectly identified, China is asked to analyze other similar cases. The United Nations health agency asked Beijing to re-examine similar pneumonia cases with unknown origin. A health ministry spokesman declared that the 2003 case was not an evidence of a severe outbreak of avian influenza at the time and that the government does not intend to review other similar cases. A letter published abroad by Chinese scientists revealed that a soldier had died following an infection with the H5N1 strain of the virus, two years before the country’s first publicly announced case. Further tests by national health authorities confirmed the suspicion and raised considerable doubts as to how Beijing detects emerging diseases as well as its transparency. China has so far reported 20 avian influenza infections to humans, of whom 12 have succumbed to the disease, but this does not include the 2003 case. World Health Organization officials state that a conclusion cannot be drawn that the virus originated from China, just that the virus has been sweeping the region for a long time. The case also highlights communication difficulties withing the Chinese government.

On June 22nd eight reputed Chinese scientists published a letter in the New England Journal of Medicine, attempting to prove that a 24-year-old man who became ill and later died in November 2003, was actually a bird flu victim, and not a SARS one, as authorities had claimed at the time. The Chinese Ministry of Health has now confirmed these suspicions, after the case was analyzed by parallel laboratory tests. These were carried out by Chinese health officials in cooperation with scientists from the World Health Organization. This only adds to the suspicion that the country had tried to cover up its bird flu cases, attributing some of them to the SARS disease.

An investigation has been started by China’s Health Ministry, to find out whether or not a man initially suspected to have died after a SARS infection, was actually suffering from bird flu, two years before the first official cases were discovered in China. Authorities were alerted by Chinese scientists, publishing their results in the June issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

Tests are said to be conducted on samples taken from the victim, but the ministry is denying to comment on the situation. The case already raises worrying questions over China’s ability to handle bird flu cases and give its full cooperation to international institutions such as WHO. It also brings into question the possibility that other countries may have wrongfully attributed SARS to H5N1 victims.

The man in question died in November 2003 in a hospital in Beijing. At the time, it was believed Chinese officials were involved in an attempt to cover up the rapid spread of SARS in Beijing and health experts world wide have criticized the manner in which China has dealt with the issue. The severe acute respiratory syndrome has similar symptoms with those caused by bird flu and has claimed the lives of 774 people world wide.

Among the wild birds in an area of Northwest China was confirmed on Friday by the Ministry fo Agriculture new cases of bird flu. In the date of April 23 was found dead a number of seventeen bar-headed geese in Yushu on a wetland. With these one the number of dead birds risen to 125.

The virus that killed the bird is the same H5N1 that until now allready killed 12 peoples in the country.

The place where the outbreak happened is a high and cold area, located more than 800 kilometres away from Xining, the provincial capital, and Qinghai Lake, which is an important habitant of a vast number of migrant birds.

The good news is that the nearest human residential area Yushu County, is located at more than 60 kilometres away.

The province’s veterinary departments has sterilized the area and is keeping a close eye on any new cases, said the ministry.

Local authorities have demanded local herdsmen keep a distance from the dead birds to prevent the virus from contaminating human beings.

The outbreak is the second case found in the province in a month after a dead bar-headed goose in Gangcha County was found carrying the deadly virus last Saturday.

China has denied covering up human bird flu cases after a U.S.-based newspaper said local officials may be hiding suspected infections from the central government and that the country’s death toll could be higher than the 12 reported.

“We must clarify that China has not been concealing any confirmed or suspected human case of bird flu since the first case occurred in November of last year,'’ Ministry of Health spokesman Mao Qun’an said in an interview with the official Xinhua News Agency published late Friday.

It was a rare official response to reports by foreign media.

The Wall Street Journal, citing an unnamed source, said Thursday that local Chinese health officials “have failed to report possible human cases of bird flu to the central government,'’ raising concerns that more people than reported may have contracted the disease.

China has reported 18 cases including 12 deaths.

The Journal did not give any more details but cited the source as saying that the central government was “quite upset from receiving information late from local officials.'’

Mao said every human case of bird flu in China has been announced as soon as it is confirmed but acknowledged that most local hospitals were slow in reporting confirmed bird flu patients to Beijing.

“Therefore, we must first raise their awareness. That is a priority,'’ he said.

Experts fear that the H5N1 virus may mutate into a form easily passed between humans and spark a pandemic. 

According to World Health Organization figures, 113 people have died worldwide, mostly from handling sick or infected poultry.

Mao said medical services are inconsistent across China, making it difficult to track outbreaks.

He said the health ministry has been urging local authorities to step up reporting, testing and screening pneumonia of unknown causes, and to be very cautious in ruling out bird flu.

China was accused of covering up an outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome in 2003. SARS eventually killed 774 people worldwide.

Despite holiday, surveillance tightened in bird-flu-hit Qinghai
Local veterinary officials in Qinghai province were asked to step up bird flu surveillance efforts during the May Day holiday, after a wild goose was killed by bird flu virus in the region.

A bar-head goose was found dead in Gangcha County of the western Qinghai province, being tested positive for the H5N1 strain, according to an announcement from the Ministry of Agriculture’s on Sunday.

The ministry, saying the area where the dead bird was found had been sterilized, ordered local authorities to tighten virus surveillance on areas where large number of migratory birds rest, China Daily reported on Tuesday.

“Dozens of teams of people are sent every day to monitor areas where lakes abound,” the paper quoted Sun Yingxiang, an official with the provincial agriculture department, as saying.

Even though it is the May Day holidays, the hundreds of observers would not be relaxing their surveillance duties, said Sun, according to the paper.

“We send people to regions that we have access to, and telescopes will be used in areas out of reach, such as wetlands,” Sun was quoted as saying.

Qinghai is known as a stopping point for migrating birds and thousands of bar-headed geese were killed by the virus in 2005 at a nature reserve in the region.

The European Commission has announced a ban on imports of live birds as China announces its third outbreak of bird flu in a week and Indonesia confirms its fourth human death from the virus.

The latest Chinese outbreak killed 545 chickens and ducks in central China and prompted authorities to destroy nearly 2,500 other birds, the government reported.

The latest cases occurred in a village in Hunan province, the government’s top veterinary bureau said in a report dated Tuesday and posted on the Web site of the Paris-based World Organization for Animal Health.

China earlier told the United Nations that 2,100 geese in the eastern province of Anhui were infected, news agencies reported Tuesday.

More than 500 of the birds died and 45,000 were culled.

China last week reported another outbreak had emerged in the country’s northern region of Inner Mongolia. Some 2,600 chickens and ducks were found dead at a breeding facility.

There have been no reports of human cases of bird flu in China.

The government’s report on the Hunan outbreak did not say whether authorities imposed quarantines or took other measures in addition to destroying birds, according to AP.

Meanwhile, European Union officials, meeting in Luxembourg, called for a ban on commercial imports of live birds into the 25-nation bloc. A committee of EU veterinarians gave their backing to the proposal Tuesday, the commission said.

The decision followed confirmation that a parrot in Britain died in quarantine from the H5N1 strain. (Full story)

“The ban covers captive live birds other than poultry imported for commercial purposes,” the European Commission said in a statement.

“A separate decision regulates the movement of (pet) birds accompanying their owners which will be subject to certain conditions.”

The commission has already imposed a temporary ban on imports of live poultry, game and feathers from Croatia after at least six swans died there from bird flu. (Full story)

The swans landed in Croatia recently, but it is not known where they migrated from. Thirteen more swans have been found dead nearby. (Full story)

Meanwhile, dead wild geese in western Germany showed preliminary positive test results for a form of bird flu, a local health official said Tuesday, but they died from poisoning, not the virus.

Further tests would be needed to confirm the virus and to tell whether it was the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu, The Associated Press quoted Stefan Brent, president of the bureau carrying out the testing, as telling a news conference in Koblenz in the state of Rheinland-Pfalz.

Brent said about 5 percent of wild birds could be expected to carry some form of bird flu, and he said the test results were “no sensational find.” (Full story)

Also Tuesday, Indonesia said testing had confirmed that a man who died last month was positive for bird flu, raising the number of deaths from the virus in the country to four.

The latest victim, a 23-year-old from Bogor, West Java, was hospitalized in late September and died two days later, Hariadi Wibisono, a Ministry of Health official told The Associated Press on Tuesday. A Hong Kong lab confirmed the test results.

The lethal H5N1 strain that has decimated the bird industry in Asia and has reached Europe first surfaced in Hong Kong in 1997, before re-emerging in 2003 in South Korea. Since then it has spread to Vietnam, Thailand, Laos, China, Indonesia, Cambodia, Russia, Turkey and Romania.

While the bird flu has devastated the bird population, there have only been 121 cases where the flu has jumped to people since 2003. Of those, more than 60 have died, all after close contact with sick birds.

However, experts fear the virus could mutate into a form that could be transmitted between humans, triggering a global pandemic.

The latest developments in Europe and Asia came as health ministers from around the world met in Canada to discuss how to tackle a possible pandemic.

They emphasized that preventing the disease from mutating into a deadly human virus was as important as developing new vaccines against it. (Full story)

Also Monday, Russia’s Tambov region confirmed an outbreak of the same deadly bird flu strain, a senior regional animal health official said. The region is located 400 kilometers (250 miles) southeast of Moscow.

“Laboratory tests have confirmed the presence of the H5N1 strain … in some dead fowl tissue samples,” the official told Reuters.

He said the disease killed 12 hens at a dacha in Morshansk district last week, after which local veterinary authorities destroyed 53 ducks and hens remaining in the area, and imposed a quarantine on it. (Full story)

Moscow confirmed last Wednesday an outbreak of H5N1 in the Tula region, some 200 kilometers south of the Russian capital.

Russia has been fighting bird flu since mid-July and has killed more than 600,000 domestic fowl.

Because there is no vaccine for a bird flu should it mutate to spread between humans, several countries around the globe have started stockpiling the antiviral or treatment drug called Tamiflu in a bid to mitigate its effects.

The World Trade Organization in 2003 decided to allow governments to override patents during national health crises, though no member state has yet invoked the clause, The Associated Press reported.

India’s government said it may consider whether to override Roche’s patent protections and allow drug manufacturers to copy Tamiflu.