Thailand has new human death from bird flu

[niman]

Thailand has new human death from bird flu

http://www.dose.ca/toronto/news/sto...ynzAA9BFQ%3D%3D

By Panarat Thepgumpanat
Reuters

Thursday, October 20, 2005

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Bird flu has killed a 48-year-old man in Thailand, the country's first human death from the killer H5N1 virus in a year, Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and health officials said on Thursday.

Health officials said the victim was a 48-year-old man in Kanchanaburi province, which has recently reported fresh outbreaks of the deadly avian influenza strain in poultry around 100 km (60 miles) west of the capital, Bangkok.

"The first lab results came out negative but we tested it several times and it confirmed it was positive," Thawat Suntrajarn, director general at the Department of Disease Control told Reuters.

Thaksin and a provincial health official said the victim appeared to have contracted the disease, which health experts fear could mutate to unleash a global killer flu pandemic among humans, from eating an infected chicken.

"The guy was infected with bird flu because he took a sick chicken, slaughtered it and then ate it," Thaksin told a news conference.

Thawat said the victim's son, who had a history of contact with chickens, had so far not tested positive for the disease.

The H5N1 bird flu strain, which first surfaced in Hong Kong in 1997, re-emerged in 2003 in South Korea, and has spread to Vietnam, Thailand, Laos, China, Indonesia, Cambodia, Russia and Europe.

More than 60 people have died from the virus in Asia, including 41 in Vietnam, the worst-affected country.

The World Health Organization says southeast Asia is the most likely epicenter of any possible human pandemic, which could stem from a mutation of the virus making it easily transmittable between people.

Despite continued sporadic animal infections over the last 12 months, Thailand has not had any new human cases for a year.

[niman]

Commentary at

http://www.recombinomics.com/News/10...lity_2005.html

[New Freedom]

With this false negative reporting.......it is really hard for anyone (except TPTB), to get a true picture of what is really going on. Why is it that the initial testing, seems to come back as negative?

[Nuthatch]

New Freedom--go to the commentary link niman provided---they discuss just that.

I take it to mean that Thailand is carefully under-reporting their cases on purpose to keep their overall count down. Is that how you read it?