Bird flu death sparks human transmission fears

THAILAND yesterday confirmed its 10th death from bird flu and said the woman may have contracted the virus from her daughter, raising the alarming possibility of human-to-human transmission of the disease.

Pranee Thongchan, 26, died on September 20 after contracting the H5N1 strain of the virus, said Charal Trinwuthipong, director general of Thailand’s Disease Control Department.

She is the 10th confirmed person to die of bird flu in Thailand this year. Nineteen deaths were also reported in Vietnam, and tens of millions of chickens and other poultry have been killed by the disease or culled to curb its spread through much of eastern Asia.

Ms Pranee’s 11-year-old daughter Sakuntala died in the hospital on September 12 in what is also believed to have been a case of avian influenza, but that could not be confirmed because her body was cremated before tests could be done, Mr Charal said.

Most human cases have been traced to contact with sick birds. Human-to-human transmission was suspected in some Vietnamese cases, but never confirmed. Scientists fear a pandemic if the virus mutates to mix with human influenza to create a form that could easily jump from one human to another.

However, the Thai government played down such fears.

“There is no evidence to suggest that the virus has mutated or re-assorted. This probable human-to-human transmission of avian influenza was related to a single index case and was limited within a family,” said a Public Health Ministry statement.

If Ms Pranee got the virus from her sick daughter it would have been an isolated case, it said.

Meanwhile, two UN agencies warned that Asia’s bird flu epidemic is a “crisis of global importance”.

Recent outbreaks among poultry in China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia and Thailand show the virus is still gripping the region and probably won’t be eradicated soon, both agencies said in a joint statement.

“A permanent threat to animal and human health continues to exist,” the Food and Agriculture Organisation and the World Organisation for Animal Health said.

Ms Pranee’s death raised fears of human-to-human transmission because her sister and niece died earlier this month of symptoms similar to bird flu, although it was impossible to confirm if they had the virus.

Human-to-human transmission was suspected in the past in Vietnam and Hong Kong, but never confirmed. All the known victims of the disease so far contracted the virus from infected birds.

Nine people have died of bird flu in Thailand and 19 in Vietnam this year.

Tens of millions of chickens and other birds have also died or been culled throughout much of Asia.

Scientists fear a global pandemic if it is proved that the virus has mutated to mix with the human influenza virus and can jump easily from one human to another.

The Thai government went on high alert and ordered one million health workers and volunteers to inform people about the need to keep tabs on dead poultry. They were also told to distribute handbooks and posters to all villages.

“The avian influenza epidemic in Asia is a ‘crisis of global importance’ and will continue to demand the attention of the international community for some time to come, the FAO and OIE joint statement said.

The influenza pandemic of 1918-1919 killed more people than the Great War, known today as World War I (WWI), at somewhere between 20 million and 40 million people. It has been cited as the most devastating epidemic in recorded world history.

More people died of influenza in a single year than in four years of the Black Death Bubonic Plague from 1347 to 1351. Known as “Spanish Flu” or “La Grippe” the influenza of 1918-1919 was a global disaster.