Four of the five people killed in Vietnam by an outbreak of bird flu were children, and the other the mother of one of the young victims, but experts don't know why the young seem to be more at risk.
At Hanoi's pediatric hospital, the front line in the country's battle against bird flu, doctors wearing goggles and gowns monitor nine children, all suffering from a respiratory illnesses that doctors fear could be bird flu.
The World Health Organization (WHO) says there has been no sign the disease is being spread between humans. Its victims are believed to have caught it from infected chickens. Eating cooked chicken and eggs is safe, officials say.
But the experts do not know if children are more susceptible to the H5N1 virus because they play outside and are more likely to be in contact with chicken droppings, or because their immune systems are weaker.
"Until now, the flu has particularly been in children, but we don't know why," said Dr. Nguyen Nang Tan, a neurologist at the Vietnam France Hospital in Hanoi.
None of the children in hospital in Hanoi is in critical condition.
Peter Horby, a WHO epidemiologist, questioned the masked and gowned mothers of the nine sick children on Monday afternoon, as the woman sat cradling their sick babies, looking for clues.
"The children that got the H5N1, we still don't know where they got it from," he said. "Clearly the concern is they got it from the chickens."
The four children who died were admitted to the hospital already very sick and rapidly deteriorated, Horby said. The first death occur-red on Dec. 30 and the most recent, an 8-year-old girl, died on Saturday, two days after she was admitted.
An alarmed government has urged parents to be on guard for the virus that has threatened to mar the Tet, or Lunar New Year, holiday that begins today.
The dead were all from rural northern provinces, which are dotted with farms, while the worst outbreak of the flu in chickens has been in the south.
No confirmed human infections of H5N1 have been reported in the south, the WHO says.
About 2 million chickens have been killed by the disease or have been culled as authorities try to stamp it out.
The transport of chickens has been banned across much of the south and their sale has been stopped in the country's biggest city, Ho Chi Minh City, also in the south.
South Korea’s air force yesterday apologized for a 2021 midair collision involving two fighter jets, a day after auditors said the pilots were taking selfies and filming during the flight and held them responsible for the accident. “We sincerely apologize to the public for the concern caused by the accident that occurred in 2021,” an air force spokesman told a news conference, adding that one of the pilots involved had been suspended from flying duties, received severe disciplinary action and has since left the military. The apology followed a report released on Wednesday by the South Korean Board of Audit and Inspection,
Indonesian police have arrested 13 people after shocking images of alleged abuse against small children at a daycare center went viral, sparking outrage across the nation, officials said on Monday. Police on Friday last week raided Little Aresha, a daycare center in Yogyakarta on Java island, following a report from a former employee. CCTV footage circulating on social media showed children, most younger than two, lying on the floor wearing only diapers, their hands and feet bound with rags. The police have confirmed that the footage is authentic. Police said they also found 20 children crammed into a room just 3m by 3m. “So
About 240 Indians claiming descent from a Biblical tribe landed at Tel Aviv airport on Thursday as part of a government operation to relocate them to Israel. The newcomers passed under a balloon arch in blue and white, the colors of the Israeli flag, as dozens of well-wishers welcomed them with a traditional Jewish song. They were the first “bnei Menashe” (“sons of Manasseh”) to arrive in Israel since the government in November last year announced funding for the immigration of about 6,000 members of the community from the states of Manipur and Mizoram in northeast India. The community claims to descend from
‘TROUBLING’: The firing of Phelan, who was an adviser to a nonprofit that supported the defense of Taiwan, was another example of ‘dysfunction’ under Trump, a US senator said US Secretary of the Navy John Phelan has been fired, a US official and a person familiar with the matter said on Wednesday, in another wartime shakeup at the Pentagon coming just weeks after US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ousted the Army’s top general. The Pentagon announced his departure in a brief statement, saying he was leaving the administration “effective immediately,” but it did not provide a reason or say whether it was his decision to go. The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Phelan was dismissed in part because he was moving too slowly to implement reforms to
RSS