Thai Man With Bird Flu Symptoms Tests Negative for Virus

Text of report in English by Thai newspaper Bangkok Post website on 19 October

Laboratory tests by the Medical Sciences Department have come back negative on a man in Kanchanaburi suspected to have caught avian flu after he became ill after coming into contact with dead chickens. Department chief Paijit Warachit said yesterday Bang-orn Benpad was thought to have contracted the deadly virus after developing bird flu-like symptoms, but the lab results had positively confirmed he had not been infected with H5N1.

The case of the 48 year-old villager in Phanom Thuan district was reported on Saturday .

A few days after slaughtering chickens belonging to his neighbours, he developed a fever and was taken to the district hospital. His condition did not improve after treatment and he was moved to the provincial hospital on Monday.

“We found he developed a lung infection with symptoms that were very similar to bird flu. But I would like to confirm that at the moment there is no confirmed [human] case of bird flu,” Dr Paijit said.

Livestock officials destroyed 364 free-range chicken in the district on Monday after many were found to have caught the disease. The area was hit by the virus last year and it was the location of the first confirmed case in humans in Thailand.

Kanchanaburi public health chief Surapong Thantanasrikul said Mr Bang-orn’s condition was critical with many parts of his lungs destroyed by infection. He was still unconscious and in an intensive care unit on a respirator.

Thailand has been on high alert for avian flu after reports of a number of outbreaks in poultry and wild birds were confirmed in many European countries.

According to the bird flu monitoring centre at the Public Health Ministry, there were seven suspected cases of bird flu in humans from four provinces from January up until last Monday .

Three were in Kamphaeng Phet, two in Sukhothai and one each in Nakhon Pathom and Sing Buri. Twelve Thais were among the 60 deaths in Southeast Asia reported by the World Health Organization.

Public Health Minister Suchai Charoenrattanakul urged people not to panic about a possible human pandemic, saying the ministry could control the disease.

Around 1,300 rapid deployment units have been set up to monitor outbreaks among poultry and prevent its spread, the minister said in talks with public health chiefs from 17 northern provinces in Chiang Mai.

Dr Suchai said officials from provincial public health offices and livestock agencies, and the governor in each province have been ordered to check up on any suspected cases of bird flu and report back with their findings within 24 hours.