Originally published March 26 2005
Human cases of bird flu being underreported; study shows 23% rate of false negatives
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
A Japanese study of thirty Vietnamese patients whose original lab tests showed no signs of bird flu indicates that seven of them actually had been infected. The study has sent alarm through the scientific and medical communities, because it indicates there has probably been significant underreporting of the number of bird flu cases in Asia.
After more than a year of watching patients sicken and die of bird flu, Dr. Tran Tinh Hien of the Hospital for Tropical Diseases here thought he understood the illness.
In the last few months, scientists have begun to think that the inaccuracy of laboratory tests, the wide variation of symptoms and the inability of public health agencies to combat the disease may have created the erroneous perception that bird flu is still rare among humans.
But doctors and public health officials point to a glaring oddity in the statistics that underscores the belief that the case count is too low to be true.
Vietnam and Thailand have reported the overwhelming majority of recent cases.
Yet Laos, which is sandwiched between the countries, has reported no cases among people or birds this year.
Cambodia, which is also flanked by Vietnam and Thailand, has confirmed only a single human case.
"People are not trying to cover it up, but given how widespread the infection is in poultry in Southeast Asia, it's hard to believe people have gotten ill in only (three) countries," said Jeremy Farrar, a University of Oxford flu researcher at the Hospital for Tropical Diseases.
For the most part, doctors searching for infected humans looked for classic pneumonia-like symptoms such as coughing, lung damage and often death.
The recent discovery of mild cases debunks the widely accepted idea that bird flu kills about 70 percent of its victims, which would make it one of the most lethal infectious diseases.
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