Bird flu epidemiology study results from Thailand

This is an interesting scientific article that goes into detail about the H5N1 bird flu infections suffered by patients in Thailand in 2004. It addresses the hugely important concern of diagnosing bird flu, which is a problem because it does not have unique symptoms.

And in Thailand, it's common for people to get a mosquito spread disease called dengue fever which also produces symptoms much like bird flu, including leucopenia (decreased number of white blood cells) and thrombocytopenia (reduced platelet count)
It is notable that they found that children with bird flu also have a cough and do not have hemoconcentration.

Hemoconcentration means that there's a decrease of blood fluid, concentrating it.

This is from the study of 16 bird flu victims.

The incubation period ranged from 2 to 8 days. All patients had a fever. All had some kind of respiratory symptoms including cough, sputum (mucus or phlegm), dyspnea (shortness of breath) and rhinorrhea (runny nose).
All the patients who died had pneumonia or acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS).
They concluded that bird flu is more lethal in children than adults.

studying bird flu epidemiology results in Thailand


Bird flu Epidemiology
Bird flu Epidemiology

another bird flu death in Indonesia

Bird flu deaths keep increasing in Indonesia. Now the mother of a 9 year old girl who died last week has died of the bird flu. But, incredibly, nobody took a sample from the girl.

This continuing failure to take samples from people with bird flu symptoms perplexes me. How many people have to die in Indonesia before doctors and other medical staff start thinking that gee, maybe somebody who has flulike symptoms of breathlessness and pneumonia has bird flu -- let's take a sample of their body fluids and test it? Especially children, who are the largest number of bird flu victims.

However, another nine year old girl from the West Javan village of Cikelet died last week, and her death was confirmed as bird flu. So this 35 year old woman is the second confirmed bird flu death, although it's likely there're others.

And now 16 people are under observation and being treated with Tamiflu.

This woman makes the 46th official bird flu death in Indonesia, and almost all of them died in 2006.

A 17 year old boy in the area has been confirmed as having bird flu, but stays in his house, refusing treatment. Unless he needs a respirator, this may be a smart move, because he'll be avoiding Tamiflu.

yet more bird flu deaths in Indonesia

How Do You Get Bird Flu

Indonesia bird flu
Indonesia bird flu