Suspected bird flu infected child retested in south

The Pasteur Institute in HCM City Monday November 28 took specimens from a 3-year-old child after an earlier test suggested the child had contracted a type-A virus, possibly bird flu. The child from the Mekong Delta province of Tien Giang was hospitalised at a local hospital last week with high fever and breathing difficulty. The child’s family reported that some of the household chickens had died a few days previous to the 3-year-old’s illness.
The child was then transferred to the HCM City-based Children Hospital 1, where tests with a rapid diagnosis kit read positive with type-A influenza virus that could possibly be the deadly bird flu virus strain H5N1 that has already claimed 42 lives in Vietnam.
New specimens from the child were sent to the Pasteur Institute and the Hospital for Tropical Diseases for further confirmation.
Tien Giang is not listed among the 19 provinces that have confirmed bird flu outbreaks since late October.

 

Category: Health