# 6080
This is the time of year when bird flu reports tend to increase, and so it is not surprising that we are seeing a number of reports on human and avian infections coming from the `usual suspects’; Cambodia, China, Vietnam, India, and Egypt.
First stop, a report in the Vietnamese Media (h/t Tetano on FluTrackers) describing a very recent fatality, ostensibly from the H5N1 bird flu virus. I’ve only printed an excerpt, you can read the entire machine translation on this FluTrackers thread.
A/H5N1 flu appears in the West, who died
Thứ Tư, 18/01/2012 - 14:01
(Dân trí)-hospitalized in a State of fever accompanied by cough and fatigue coal report, male patients L.V.N (age 18) quickly lapsed into respiratory failure leading to death. Sample test results at the Institut Pastuer TPHCM swabs showed patients were positive for influenza A/H5N1.
at the emergency meeting discusses disease prevention projects at the time of the year by the Department of Health organizes creative 16/1, DR. Le Royal San, HO CHI MINH CITY Institute Deputy Pastuer said: 'influenza A/H5N1 were re-appeared in the southern region. Victims are young men age 18 worked as shepherds duck in Hau Giang Province
Trying to glean details from a machine translation is always fraught with danger, but it appears that an 18 y.o. male showed up at a Kien Giang province hospital with fever, cough, and fatigue after several days of illness in early January.
On the 10th, the hospital sent out samples to the Institut Pastuer for H5N1 testing, but before positive test results could be returned, the patient went into respiratory failure and died.
While this article strongly indicates H5N1, until this case is reported to the World Health Organization by Vietnam’s Health Ministry, it remains a suspected case.
Next stop, while not unexpected, sad news nonetheless out of Cambodia, where the 2 y.o. we learned about last Friday in critical condition with bird flu has died.
Bird flu-infected Cambodian boy died
Updated January 18, 2012 01:54 PM
PHNOM PENH (Xinhua) -- A 2-year-and-7 month-old boy from northwestern province of Banteay Meanchey had died early Wednesday from avian influenza A (H5N1) virus after being admitted to hospital for about a week, said a senior health official.
"The boy passed away at 2:00 a.m. early Wednesday due to critical condition," Sok Touch, director of the Health Ministry' s anti-communicable disease department, told Xinhua over telephone on Wednesday.
He said the boy was the nineteenth person in Cambodia to become infected with H5N1 virus, and the first person died this year. "To date, 17 persons had died from H5N1 in Cambodia," he said.
And finally, over the past few days we’ve seen an increase in the number of news reports coming out of Egypt on suspected H5N1 cases being treated in local hospitals.
Egypt is extremely proactive in isolating and treating suspected bird flu patients, and so the vast majority that have been hospitalized over the years have turned out to be false alarms.
Whether any of this current crop of suspect cases turns out to be actually due to the H5N1 virus is something we’ll have to wait to see.
That said, a sample of the kind of reports we are getting from the Arabic media follows. A hat tip to Sharon Sanders for this report.
Book a housewife, on suspicion of bird flu in Menoufia
Menoufia Mohammed Issawi
18-1-2012 | 12:41
Detained by the Directorate of Health Affairs Menoufia woman named Sahar Samir Stone (25 years - housewife) within the Fever Hospital angle Naoura martyrs on suspicion of being infected with bird flu after the onset of symptoms of illness. Dr. Ayman Abdel Moneim, Under the Ministry of Health Menoufia, it was taking a sample of the blood of the patient, and sent to labs central Ministry of Health for analysis, also announced that the Directorate of Veterinary Medicine for the cause of injury the victim is exposed to dead birds, has been clearing house of eligibility, and to take samples in contact with the house and take preventive measures adopted in this regard.
Typically, from Thanksgiving through the end of April is the height of `bird flu season’, although sporadic cases can appear anytime of the year. You can easily see the pattern in the FAO chart below, which lists confirmed human cases by month and country.
Which means that if 2012 follows the pattern, we should be hearing about a fair number of cases – both human and in birds – over the next few months.
