The WHO announced Wednesday that the first case of human infection with H5N2 bird flu was detected, a patient in Mexico City who died on April 24.
“It was a death due to a set of factors, not attributable to the H5N2 virus,” declared Christian Lindmeier, WHO spokesperson, at a press conference this Friday in Geneva.
The patient was in bed for three weeks and then went to the hospital for respiratory complications, Lindmeier said.
The WHO reported, based on information from Mexican health authorities, that the patient began to suffer acute symptoms including fever, respiratory distress, diarrhea, nausea and malaise on April 17 and that he died on the 24th of that month.
Doctors performed several tests and detected that the patient was infected with H5N2 avian flu, Lindmeier explained.
Mexican health authorities stated on Thursday that the cause of the patient’s death is being investigated, but highlighted that the 59-year-old man, who was diabetic, developed kidney failure and after a few hours, respiratory failure.
Health Secretary Jorge Alcocer questioned a WHO statement on Wednesday, which stated that the case was the first recorded infection in humans and also the first death.
“The statement made by the WHO is quite bad. From the outset it talks about a fatal case, which was not the case. “He died for another reason,” the minister stated.
“The investigation is ongoing. There is serology in progress. That involves a blood test of contacts to see if there was any possible previous infection,” Lindmeier explained.
17 contacts of the case at the hospital were identified and all tested negative. In the patient’s home, 12 contacts were followed up in the previous weeks and none tested positive.
“The H5N2 infection is being investigated to determine if he was infected by someone who visited him or by previous contact with an animal.”“said the spokesperson.
The WHO reported Wednesday that the source of the infection is unknown, but in March an H5N2 flu outbreak was detected at a poultry farm in Michoacán, bordering the state of Mexico.
In addition, other cases were confirmed in poultry in March in Texcoco and in April in Temascalapa, two municipalities in the state of Mexico.
On Friday, the WHO said a two-year-old girl tested positive for H5N1, a different strain of bird flu, and needed intensive care in Australia after returning from India.
Based on the information available, the WHO estimates that the current risk that the virus represents for the population is low.
Source: AFP
