Bad developments in H5N1 in Asia and Europe

Two bad news were announced at the end of the week: H5N1 crossed the border into the European Union (EU) and found H5N1 resistant to Tamiflu in a Vietnamese patient.

The medical staff were carrying geese to destroy in the village of Ceamurlia de Jos, the place where the first H5N1 avian flu epidemic occurred in Romania On October 15, the Romanian Ministry of Agriculture announced the UK test results confirmed H5N1. - More than 60 deadly perpetrators in Asia - have appeared in Eastern Europe, particularly in wild ducks in Romania. The statement came a week after H5N1 was discovered at a poultry farm in Turkey. So far Turkey has destroyed 5,000 poultry.

The Romanian Minister of Agriculture has called on people to be calm because although the strong spread of birds and birds, the H5N1 has not spread easily between people and people. The northeastern region of the country is being quarantined and all vehicles entering and leaving the area are disinfected. 20,000 birds will be destroyed to prevent the spread of the virus.

In response to this situation, the World Health Organization (WHO) continues to make recommendations: although the virus has not spread easily between people and people, H5N1 can mutate into a pandemic strain in humans, causing millions death. According to Klaus Stoehr, unaffected countries should be aware that H5N1 will spread more widely and should be prepared to deal with the disease.

Elsewhere, American scientists who are cooperating with Vietnamese and Japanese colleagues announced on October 14: the avian influenza virus isolated from a girl in Vietnam was resistant. Tamiflu medicine .

The 14-year-old girl was prescribed Tamiflu in February 2005 for prevention. Although not in direct contact with infected birds, at that time she was caring for her 21-year-old brother suspected of being infected with bird flu. The virus was isolated in the girl's body just like the virus in her brother. The girl recovered but the case showed that she was probably infected with the virus from her brother, not directly from the bird.

Recently, scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison discovered that many of the viruses of the H5N1 virus in the specimen of the girl developed genetic mutations that disabled Tamiflu. And all of the H5N1 virus mixture from the girl's specimen is also partially resistant to this drug. Tamiflu or oseltamivir is considered the first defensive barrier to a future pandemic. Countries around the world are spending billions of dollars to store this drug.

According to Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the findings suggest that health officials should also consider storing other drugs such as zanamivir - an older generation antiviral drug. Drugs like Tamiflu, used in conjunction with quarantine, can slow the spread of the virus until the world produces the vaccine. However, Tamiflu and other flu antiviral drugs cannot replace vaccines. Only effective vaccines can help the body immune to the virus.

According to the researchers, Tamiflu should only be prescribed to patients infected with avian influenza virus and should be tested regularly to see if it is mutating and increasingly resistant to drugs. They also added that the finding does not mean that resistant H5N1 strains will effectively and successfully infect. However, research makes us aware that drug-resistant viruses are a problem, and therefore have global surveillance measures.

Minh Son ( Summary from THX, BBC, FoxNews, Reuters )