In Hanoi, Vietnam, a 26 year old male nurse has tested positve for the avian Bird Flu after caring for a patient infected with the virus. The nurse,
who is the first medical worker reported to have tested positive for the disease, was admitted to Hanoi hospial on February 28th and is reported in a
stable condition. Authorities say that is is more likely that the man caught the disease in his girlfriend's home province, where the disease has had
outbreaks, rather than contracting the illness from his patient.
www.ctv.ca
"We are investigating this case," said Pham Van Diu, director of the provincial Preventive Medicine Center.
"But it's more likely that he contracted the disease while visiting his girlfriend in the district during Tet where poultry were served and bird flu
outbreaks were reported," he said.
A severe form of bird flu has infected and killed 46 people from Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia, since it began ravaging poultry farms across the
region starting in Dec. 2003.
Experts fear that if the virus mutates into a form that can easily pass among people, it would cause the world's next pandemic, killing millions of
people.
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The 21 year old patient of the nurse, who contracted the illness after consuming raw ducks blood has a younger sister being treated in the same
hospital for the same virus. The siblings have raised renewed concerns of the mutation of the virus.
All previous cases in the Thai Binh area contracted the disease from direct contact with poultry.
Authorities worldwide are now on a heightened alert for the mutation of the virus which seems at this point to be a matter of when and not if.
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Vietnamese nurse tests positive for bird flu
[edit on 11-3-2005 by Banshee]
