Well being officers in Vietnam have reported a extreme H5N1 avian flu an infection in an 8-year-old woman who’s experiencing encephalitis signs, which seems to mark the nation’s first human case of 2025.
The woman is from Tay Ninh province, positioned in southern Vietnam between Phnom Penh and Ho Chi Minh Metropolis, based on an April 18 assertion from the Ho Chi Minh Metropolis Division of Well being that was translated and posted by FluTrackers, an infectious illness new message board.
The affected person’s signs, which included fever, headache, and vomiting, started on April 11, and she or he was initially admitted to a provincial hospital. When her situation did not enhance, she was transferred to Youngsters’s Hospital in Ho Chi Minh Metropolis on April 13, the place she was recognized as having encephalitis.
Officers mentioned the woman has an underlying coronary heart situation and had surgical procedure for a ventricular septal defect when she was 2 months outdated.
Polymerase chain response exams on her respiratory samples had been adverse for H5 avian flu, however her cerebrospinal fluid pattern was optimistic for the virus, with outcomes confirmed by the Pasteur Institute in Ho Chi Minh Metropolis.
The affected person stays hospitalized on a ventilator with secure very important indicators.
An epidemiologic investigation discovered that, earlier than she received sick, the kid had contact with a poultry flock at her grandmother’s home that had skilled mass deaths 2 weeks earlier.
Earlier report described meningitis presentation
Officers mentioned H5N1 infections that contain solely the central nervous system are uncommon however have been reported earlier than, comparable to in 2004 in Vietnam, when clinicians recognized H5N1 within the cerebrospinal considered one of two siblings who died inside weeks of one another from extreme neurologic signs, however with out respiratory signs, suggesting that the sickness spectrum is wider than beforehand thought.
Vietnam reported its final human H5 case in December 2024, which concerned an 18-year-old man from Lengthy An province who was uncovered to sick poultry and died from his an infection.
It isn’t clear which H5N1 clade contaminated the woman, however in 2024 scientists warned of an H5N1 reassortant circulating throughout the Higher Mekong area that has contaminated each birds and other people. It comprises floor proteins of an older H5N1 clade (2.3.2.1c) that has circulated in components of Asia with a more moderen clade (2.3.4.4b) that has circulated globally since 2022.