China: 77 Avian Flu Patients Dead in Liaoning Province...Victim's Name Published on Internet

Daily China ^ | 11/21/05

[TigerLikesRooster]

/begin my translation

China: 77 Avian Flu Patients Dead in Liaoning Province...Victim's Name Published on Internet

2005/11/21 

In Liaoning Province of China, 6 people were infected with H5N1 Avian Flu and had died recently, according to Nov. 20 report by an overseas Chinese language news site, Boxun, quoting the article posted by a poster.

Six victims were 4 students in Beining City, 1 epidemic-prevention worker, and another person whose identity is unknown. According to the post, the number of dead people from H5N1 Avian Flu in Liaoning Province has reached 77, including the six new victims. Furthermore, at one of domestic Chinese Internet site, the name of 14 migrant farm workers killed by Avian Flu were published on Nov. 19.

According to the post at Boxun.com,  government gives monetary compensation to victim's family in return for not divulging the nature of victim's death. However, if it gets ever revealed, not a single cent of compensation would be given, and would be arrested for endangering social order and security.

Of the 6 dead, the family of epidemic-prevention worker were given 240,000 yuan($30,000), and other victim's family were given 120,000 yuan($15,000). Those families who got less complained to Beijing government, and this led to the news leak to others.

The number of people who were suspected of Avian Flu and underwent a medical test or were quarantined for a short period of time has exceeded 150,000. Furthermore, rumors are spreading in the local area, which say that Avian Flu can now spread from person to person. This plunged the local residents into panic. The number of infected people in Liaoning Province is estimated to exceed those of Qing-hai Province during the previous Avian Flu outbreak(a few months ago.)

The name of 14 dead victims were published in a post at an Chinese domestic Internet site called 'Tienya Forum.' It said that most of the dead were farm workers from Sichuan, Hunan, Anhui Province, who were working at the area of Liaoning Province where Avian Flu is raging. The poster who published the list said that he did so in order to inform the victim's family of what happened. Its detail are as follows:

According to migrant farm workers in Liaoning Province, most of them has died from H5N1 Avian Flu or been placed in quarantine. If a person dies from Avian Flu and he does not have his family in the local area, he was immediately cremated, leading the victim's family to believe that he is just missing. Due to tight information control, I could only obtain the names of 14 dead victims. The list is as follows. All died from H5N1 Avian Flu and their bodies were cremated.

/end my translation

[Judith Anne]

As I recall, the human to human transmission in Vietnam was from a patient to a family member caring for him. Transmission through casual contact has not occurred, at least not officially

A young girl got it from poultry, her mother, caring for her, got it, but also may have been exposed to poultry. Her mother's sister had no known poultry exposure, but cared for the mother. All three died. You are correct, that is the first recorded instance of h2h transmission. In that instance, no health care workers got the illness.

[verity]

"It's been my understanding that you have to have intimate contact with infected foul to catch it."

Sleeping with the fishes poultry.

[saganite]

LOL! Just read my post and realized it should have said fowl

[Dog Gone]

I'm going to remain optimistic and suggest that this only proves that avian flu is widespread amongst Chinese poultry. Given the Chinese population, we could expect a sizeable number of the people there to contract the illness if it's widespread in the bird population.

When it truly becomes transmissible between humans with no birds involved, the number of infected patients will immediately be numbered in the thousands.

[kajingawd]

Cos China is making this shyte up...they are the manufacturers of these ( viruses )...

[Judith Anne]

When it truly becomes transmissible between humans with no birds involved, the number of infected patients will immediately be numbered in the thousands.

And we won't know about it for three weeks.

[little jeremiah]

Remember that the Indonesian fellow in the CFR transcripts said that the nine people who died there were, and I quote, "only the tip of the iceberg". He admitted that they had no idea about the number of humans who had it or had died.

[Dog Gone]

I'm also fatalistic in that regard. When it does start spreading rapidly between humans there's not a darn thing we can do about it. A vaccine can then start to be developed, but it will be months before any is available.

Pinpointing when and where the h2h transmission began will be an interesting tidbit for future historians, but it's not going to help us at all when the pandemic quickly goes global.

[Judith Anne]

Honestly, we really have no idea what H5N1 is doing in asia, and I doubt we will for some time--not until it's too late.

When the most reliable information about the current state of H5N1 viral evolution is found on a personal translation of a smuggled underground Chinese dissident internet publication, because the freaking Chinese won't pay full death benefit fees if the true cause of death is disclosed--
we live in danger of a pandemic overtaking us before we even know it's there.

[Yaelle]

Yes, and human-to-human transmission was shown in the BBC documentary film of September. A doctor and a medical worker both became infected. Perhaps that was Viet Nam; I don't remember.

The article from China linked above by Judith Anne mentioned that several STUDENTS had gotten ill. That sounds like human-to-human, close contact living, rather than exposure to chickens on the farm. Scary.

[Judith Anne]

A vaccine can then start to be developed, but it will be months before any is available.

And that "any" is going to be worth more than gold; the plant that makes it will be worth more than gold; shipments of it will be worth more than gold...

[Judith Anne]

You are now "famous" TLR. A poster over at CurEvents.com evidently read your translation and posted it over there on that forum, and gave a link to this thread.

CurEvents has excellent information on Avian Flu, and I'm glad if we could be of assistance with the translation. I hope everyone agrees. Information is critical, and should be shared whenever possible. Who knows where the information will come from, that will save lives?

Here is the link to the CurEvents article:

http://www.curevents.com/vb/showthread.php?p=203527#post203527

I post there infrequently under my own name.

[Natural Law]

China still has deplorable health and sanitation practices. For the most part, they exist on poor diets and are exposed to environmental toxins and pollution not imaginable by those of us in western countries. Markets are full of live exotic animals and home grown poultry and produce. The use of "night fertilizer" is still very common outside the major cities. Add in a little over crowding, lack of basic medical care, unaffordable medicines and superstition and you have a recipe for disaster.

[saveliberty]

That is a very good explanation. Thank you. :-)

[TigerLikesRooster]

Re #33

Well, there are definitely many concerned people out there. Glad to hear that somebody finds my work helpful. I suppose this kind of article tends to fall through the crack. It takes some commitment to produce a decent translation but those who have such resources, major news organization, could not print it because verifying its content is nearly impossible under the current circumstance.

[Judith Anne]

Considering what passes for news in the major media, I value your translation and your commitment even more. And I hadn't noticed that verification was a big component of major news stories, at least here in the US.

Again, I thank you.

[Palladin]

Very interesting.

Thanks for the translation.

So, there may be many many more victims, but their families are being paid to keep quiet...to prevent a panic?

[2ndreconmarine]

Honestly, we really have no idea what H5N1 is doing in asia, and I doubt we will for some time--not until it's too late. -- we live in danger of a pandemic overtaking us before we even know it's there.

I think that is exactly right. Because of the dynamics of epidemiological growth, the time that it takes to go from an index patient to "discovery" of an epidemic by the MSM is about the same time as from discovery to full-bore, world-wide pandemic. And, therefore, "it can overtake us before we even know it's there."

However, I take a somewhat iconoclastic perspective on the issue of whether China is hiding H5N1 human to human transmission. IMHO, I hope that there have already been h2h transmission. I hope there has been a lot of it already. The reason is that the contagion and hence growth rate is unknown. The Hong Kong researchers suggested that it would be 2 more infections every 3 days, but that is their opinion only. Perhaps it is much slower. If it is much slower, that would mean we would have a better chance of fighting this. We can work the problem in reverse. Given that there is some sufficiently large number of cases that the Chineese cannot hide, which we take as an upper bound to the problem, then the longer that h2h transmission has been going on, the slower the infection rate.

To illustrate. Assume that the number of cases beyond which China cannot disguise is 10,000. Assume that the index case of h2h was 6 months ago. Then the e-folding time is 20 days. To go to world-wide pandemic of 1 billion infections from this 10,000 takes 230 days; a fair fraction of a year. By contrast, assume that the index case of h2h was 1 month ago. Then the e-folding time is 3.3 days. To go to world-wide pandemic of 1 billion infections from this 10,000 takes only 38 days.

[Judith Anne]

Okay, I get it. ;-D

I'm sure you already know all the questions your post raises...