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The bird flu virus may be more common among humans than
previously thought, but it probably doesn't kill half its
victims, according to a recent study published in Archives
of Internal Medicine .
The study, conducted by researchers at Karolinska University
Hospital in Stockholm, Sweden, involved 45,476 randomly
selected residents of a rural region in Vietnam where bird
flu is rampant among poultry. More than 80 percent lived
in households that kept poultry, and 25 percent lived in
homes reporting sick or dead fowl.
A total of 8,149 residents reported a flu-like illness with
a fever and cough, and residents who had direct contact
with dead or sick poultry were 73 percent more likely to
have experienced those symptoms than residents without direct
contact.
The researchers said between 650 and 750 flu-like cases
could be attributed to direct contact with sick or dead
birds, but most patients said their illnesses were mild,
lasting about three days.
"The results suggest that the symptoms most often are relatively
mild and that close contact is needed for transmission to
humans," wrote Dr. Anna Thorson, one of the researchers.
The study's authors noted that without any blood-test evidence
to prove that the residents had bird flu, the results of
their research are not conclusive. They also said they can't
be certain that the birds reported in the study had the
H5N1 bird flu virus or that it caused the human illnesses,
but they deemed it the most likely explanation.
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