INDIA: " 95 Samples tested" for H5N1

The worst is here! Several people tested positive

Associated Press

New Delhi, February 22, 2006
The Union health secretary on Wednesday said "it is a distinct possibility"
that some people in the country have contracted bird flu, a news agency
reported.

According to official sources, 12 people have been
tested positive in Maharashtra.


Earlier, bird flu was confirmed in two people who were under observation
in Navapur in Maharashtra.

The samples of some of those quarantined tested positive for bird flu,
according to health officials.

The government had ordered two new sophisticated testing procedures
which will shorten the time taken to detect the virus in both human
beings and birds.

PK Hota, the top civil servant in the federal health ministry, said tests on
nine people hospitalised with flu-like symptoms were still being analysed.

The results were expected on Thursday.

"We do not rule out the possibility of humans being affected, and it is a
distinct possibility," he was quoted as saying by a news agency.




http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/
181_1632858,001300820000.htm


Edited by Rick

New Delhi, Feb. 22: The Union government on
Wednesday evening issued an official statement that "reports appearing in
a section of the media that two persons have tested positive for avian
influenza are merely speculative". The reference was to a couple of TV
channels that had aired news on Wednesday evening of the transmission
of the H5N1 virus to humans in the country.

A top Union health ministry official had said on Wednesday evening that
"initial reports seem to suggest the presence of a mild form of bird flu
virus in some of the people who have been tested" even though Union
health minister Anbumani Ramadoss later said that any "confirmation"
would be available only on Thursday. "Any authentic statement on this
can only made on Thursday," said Dr Ramadoss when asked to comment
on the official’s statement.

However, on Wednesday night, the government said the reports of bird
flu infecting humans were "speculative" and added: "As of now, i.e. 8 pm
on February 22, 2006, there is no case of avian influenza." The official
release said that 12 people kept in isolation for observation in Navapur
were normal.

If the "initial reports", as mentioned by the top health ministry official, are
confirmed on Thursday, it would be the first instance of transmission of
the H5N1 virus from poultry to human beings in India. The persons
believed to be affected by bird flu have been isolated and are being
administered Tamiflu.

"Of the 95 samples, 90 have tested negative. As far as the other five
samples are concerned, we will be getting the confirmation on Thursday,"
said Dr Ramadoss. The minister refused to confirm reports that two
persons had been diagnosed with bird flu. Of 95 samples, 44 had been
sent to the National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD) at Delhi
while 51 had been sent to the National Institute of Virology (NIV) at Pune.

The Union government is fearful of the panic that may be generated if
confirmation of the transmission of the virus to human beings comes
through. A daily government briefing for journalists on the bird flu
situation was mysteriously cancelled on Wednesday.

The transmission of the H5N1 virus to human beings occurs due to direct
contact with infected poultry or surfaces contaminated by its faeces.
Transmission of the virus to human beings is considered most likely
during slaughter and de-feathering of infected poultry.

But the transmission of the H5N1 virus to human beings is a dangerous
escalation of the havoc that the virus can cause. The disease caused in
humans by the H5N1 virus worldwide "follows an unusually aggressive
clinical course with rapid deterioration and high fatality" with "primary
viral pneumonia and multi-organ failure being common".

While infection in poultry has been reported from several countries,
including India, transmission to humans has been reported only in a few
countries, including Cambodia, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam. The
World Health Organisation has already warned of a pandemic that can be
caused once the virus mutates further and begins to spread easily from
one human to another.


http://www.asianage.com/main.asp?layout=2&cat1=1&cat2=22&new sid=210211&RF=DefaultMain

Wow, this is possibly the worst country to have the pandemic start in!!!!!!!

 

gpthesailor

gpthesailor wrote: Wow, this is possibly the worst country to have the pandemic start in!!!!!!!

Well its not a good country to have an outbreak in, thats for sure.

But what we are also seeing, in terms of all the news from India, reflects the difference in availability of press reports in English, the press's willingness to speculate, etc. And also the fact that different types of powerful people in India are prepared to contradict eachother publically sometimes.

These are things we wouldnt expect to get so much of in SE_Asia where most of the bird flu was till now. Imagine what reports we would of got out of China over the years if their press, business & governemnt worked differently.


Edited by elbows

Flurry of tests in city follow bird flu scare

[ Thursday, February 23, 2006 01:08:41 amTIMES NEWS NETWORK >

PUNE: The Maharashtra animal husbandry department's Regional Disease
Investigation Laboratory (RDIL) here has dispatched 35 samples from
dead poultry and livestock to the Bhopal-based High Security Animal
Diseases Laboratory (HSADL) for confirmatory tests.

S.V. Pathak, deputy commissioner, RDIL, told TOI that the samples include
four tissues collected from Dharur in Beed district, where about 200
chicks died on Monday; five from Ahmednagar district and nine from
Miraj in Sangli district.

"Two tissue samples handed over by a poultry farmer from Purandar
taluka in Pune district have been sent to HSADL," Pathak said. Fifteen
other serum samples from live poultry from Aurangabad district are also
being sent, Pathak added.

"The symptoms of Ranikhet disease and bird flu are so similar that it's
difficult to reveal the status conclusively before tests at the Bhopal
laboratory," district deputy commissioner, animal husbandry, K.R.
Singhal, said.

However, there has not been a single case of bird flu from any part of
Pune district so far, he added. The HSADL is the country's only advanced
laboratory for confirmatory tests on avian influenza and other deadly
animal diseases




http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1424983.cms