Friday, December 12, 2008

Looking for human cases in the Assam outbreak in India

Some good news and some bad news this morning. The bad news first:

"India is sending bird flu experts to the northeastern state of Assam and setting up isolation units to treat up to 90 people showing signs of the virus, health authorities said on Friday.
Health workers have yet to confirm any human cases of H5N1, but they said some patients were suffering from fever and respiratory infections, which are symptoms of the virus in humans...

"So far none of the patients has a history of contact with infected poultry, but we are taking no chances. If the disease is transmitted to humans it will be a big disaster," Sarma said.
The medical teams brought supplies of equipment as a preventative measure in case the virus spreads to humans, including 10,000 Tamiflu capsules, 6,000 surgical masks and two ventilators."

Anytime we have large numbers of people with flu like illness there is a possibility that this could be a human to human cluster. The good news is seeing governments take this seriously and "taking no chances"

http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSTRE4BB36M20081212

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