Preliminary test results indicate a Takeo woman who died in Vietnam last week did not have avian influenza, although a second test is needed before the virus can be officially discounted, health officials said Thursday.
“Test samples of the Cambodian girl who died in An Giang [province] were negative to H5N1,” virologist Phan Van Tu of the Pasteur Institute in Ho Chi Minh City told Agence France-Presse on Thursday.
A first test Wednesday on blood samples from the 24-year-old pregnant woman came back negative for H5N1, but officials are awaiting the results of a second test to confirm she did not have the virus, said Sean Tobin, an epidemiologist with the World Health Organization.
“We haven’t had a confirmed negative, [but] it’s fairly rare that it would change” between tests, he said.
Chau Doc Hospital in An Giang waited several days before sending the woman’s blood samples to Pasteur, Tobin said Wednesday. If they were not stored in proper conditions the virus could have deteriorated, which could yield a false negative, he said.
“I think it is most likely…that she did not have avian flu,” Ly Sovann, head of the surveillance bureau for the Department of Communicable Diseases, said after a Ministry of Health probe into the woman’s clinical history.
An investigative team from the ministry found the woman had a history of asthma, he said. He said it was likely she died from another respiratory infection, but he was awaiting the official report.
The WHO is requesting more information from Chau Doc Hospital about the woman’s condition and the treatment she received before her death Feb 5, Tobin said.
There are currently no suspected cases of human bird flu in Cambodia, Ly Sovann said. There have been six suspected cases, all of which tested negative, he said. Bird flu has killed 19 people in Vietnam and Thailand, The Associated Press reported.
