# 356
A truly strange report across the wires today from Reuters.
Suspected bird flu case in Azerbaijan
BAKU, Jan 25 (Reuters) - Health authorities in Azerbaijan are treating a 14-year-old boy for suspected bird flu, the Health Ministry said on Thursday.The boy's sister was one of five people who died last year in an outbreak of H5N1 strain bird flu in the former Soviet republic between Turkey and Russia, the ministry said.
"It is too early to speak of an exact diagnosis. The boy's blood sample has been sent for analysis to a laboratory in London and is also being analysed in Baku," said a Health Ministry official who did not want to be named.The boy is being treated in a respiratory illness institute in the capital, Baku.
The cluster of bird flu cases last year in Azerbaijan was a major event last spring, and sparked a full scale investigation by International health investigators. Seven patients tested positive, and five of them died.
Now, nine months later, the brother of one of the victims of that cluster is suspected of being infected. Tests are pending.
The conclusion of investigators on the original cluster, released in May of 2006 :
"Close contact with and de-feathering of infected wild swans were the most plausible exposures to influenza A/H5N1 virus in the Daikyand cluster," which included seven confirmed cases and four deaths, says the investigators' report, published this week in the monthly issue of Eurosurveillance.
Once again, we'll have to wait for lab results before drawing any conclusions. But this is a strange turn of events.
