The World Health Organization (WHO) has raised the number of Vietnam's confirmed bird flu deaths by one to four, saying a five-year-old boy who died this month was found to have been carrying the virus.
The UN health agency, which is helping Vietnam battle the fast-spreading disease, said the boy, from Nam Dinh province, died on Jan. 8. Nam Dinh is about 100km south of the capital Hanoi.
"WHO now counts four confirmed cases of H5N1 in Vietnam," the agency said in a statement issued late on Friday, referring to the bird flu virus.
The virus continues to infect more people in Vietnam.
Vietnamese hospital officials in southern Kien Giang province yesterday said a 21-year-old woman admitted on Jan. 11 and a 25-year-old man hospitalized two days later showed all the symptoms of influenza A, or the H5N1 strain of bird flu.
They had high fevers, coughs, low blood pressure and low levels of blood cells, symptoms of influenza A, a doctor said on condition of anonymity.
It is the first time suspected human cases have been reported in the south, where the bulk of the bird infections have been. Authorities in the southern Mekong Delta have slaughtered more than a million chickens so far in an attempt to stop the flu's spread.
The two people had not traveled recently outside the province, where no poultry sickened by bird flu have been reported, the doctor said.
Also, the Tuoi Tre newspaper reported yesterday that three 1-year-old babies from Hanoi and two surrounding provinces suspected of contracting the virus were admitted to a pediatric hospital in the last two days. Two of them are in serious condition and are on respirators, it said.
Hospital officials declined to comment.
The WHO has four experts advising the government on how to stem the disease.
More experts from the WHO, as well as from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Agriculture Organization were expected to arrive in coming days, the WHO said.
There has been a rise in respiratory cases in Hanoi's hospitals but these have not been proven to be bird flu, the UN health agency said.
Vietnam's flu cases have occurred in the north, while the bird flu has struck the south. It is unclear how the people were infected.
South Korea, Japan and Taiwan have also reported outbreaks of bird flu, but Vietnam has been the hardest hit.
Thailand, one of the world's biggest chicken producers, says it has no bird flu but will inspect every poultry farm in the country to halt the spread of cholera among chickens, a top Thai official said on Friday.
By 2027, Denmark would relocate its foreign convicts to a prison in Kosovo under a 200-million-euro (US$228.6 million) agreement that has raised concerns among non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and residents, but which could serve as a model for the rest of the EU. The agreement, reached in 2022 and ratified by Kosovar lawmakers last year, provides for the reception of up to 300 foreign prisoners sentenced in Denmark. They must not have been convicted of terrorism or war crimes, or have a mental condition or terminal disease. Once their sentence is completed in Kosovan, they would be deported to their home country. In
Brazil, the world’s largest Roman Catholic country, saw its Catholic population decline further in 2022, while evangelical Christians and those with no religion continued to rise, census data released on Friday by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) showed. The census indicated that Brazil had 100.2 million Roman Catholics in 2022, accounting for 56.7 percent of the population, down from 65.1 percent or 105.4 million recorded in the 2010 census. Meanwhile, the share of evangelical Christians rose to 26.9 percent last year, up from 21.6 percent in 2010, adding 12 million followers to reach 47.4 million — the highest figure
A Chinese scientist was arrested while arriving in the US at Detroit airport, the second case in days involving the alleged smuggling of biological material, authorities said on Monday. The scientist is accused of shipping biological material months ago to staff at a laboratory at the University of Michigan. The FBI, in a court filing, described it as material related to certain worms and requires a government permit. “The guidelines for importing biological materials into the US for research purposes are stringent, but clear, and actions like this undermine the legitimate work of other visiting scholars,” said John Nowak, who leads field
LOST CONTACT: The mission carried payloads from Japan, the US and Taiwan’s National Central University, including a deep space radiation probe, ispace said Japanese company ispace said its uncrewed moon lander likely crashed onto the moon’s surface during its lunar touchdown attempt yesterday, marking another failure two years after its unsuccessful inaugural mission. Tokyo-based ispace had hoped to join US firms Intuitive Machines and Firefly Aerospace as companies that have accomplished commercial landings amid a global race for the moon, which includes state-run missions from China and India. A successful mission would have made ispace the first company outside the US to achieve a moon landing. Resilience, ispace’s second lunar lander, could not decelerate fast enough as it approached the moon, and the company has
RSS