January 22, 2012 Health officials in China confirm that on Sunday, a second man died from the H5N1 virus in less than a month. In late December, the country reported its first case of the deadly disease in humans since 2010.
The latest victim, a 39 year-old man, was admitted to a hospital on January 6 in Guiyang, the capital of Guizhou Province, in Southwest China. Health officials said tests confirmed the virus, and the victim's health quickly deteriorated. The first victim, a bus driver from Shenzen, China, near the Hong-Kong border, reportedly died of the H5N1 (aka bird flu) virus on December 31, 2011.
Since 2003, there have been 42 Avian flu cases reported in China, of which 28 patients - nearly two-thirds died. The World Health Organization (WHO) says none of the cases were contracted by "human-to-human spread."
According to WHO, the avian influenza virus has killed more than 330 people around the world, However, no case has ever been transmitted from human-to-human.
Three other deaths have been reported within the last week, in Vietnam Cambodia and Indonesia.
On Friday, a five-year-old Indonesian girl was the second bird flu death in the country in 2012, the first case was said to be a relative of the girl. In Cambodia, a toddler's death has been attributted to the deadly H5N1 virus.
Vietnam officials have reported the first human death from the H5N1 virus in nearly two years.
Controversy swirled after two scientists, Yoshihiro Kawaoka from the University of Wisconsin, Madison and Ron Fouchier of the Erasmus Medical Center, in the Netherlands received a stern warning by the World Health Organization (WHO) after news that the two, working seperately discovered a mutant strain of the H5N1 that makes the virus airborne (enabling it to spread readily between humans), without making it less deadly.
After the flu researchers announced their work in December, WHO expressed deep concern about the potential negative consequences of the flu researchers work. WHO warned:
"While it is clear that conducting research to gain such knowledge must continue, it is also clear that certain research, and especially that which can generate more dangerous forms of the virus ... has risks."
In 2009, the World Health Organization confirmed that al-Qaeda was experimenting with plague in a report titled “40 al-Qaeda fanatics died horribly from a killer plague.” However, the news of the incident was largely ignored.
Friday, researchers announced that the bird flu research has been voluntarily halted for 60 days to allow time "to clearly explain the benefits of this important research and the measures taken to minimize its possible risks."
In both journals in which the research will be reported, Science and Nature, the research teams published a letter calling for an "international forum" to debate the risks and value of the studies.
In the scientists' letter published on Friday, they argues that knowledge of more infectious strains before mutatation in nature is valuable for public health.
"More research is needed to determine how influenza viruses in nature become human pandemic threats," the statement says, "so that they can be contained before they acquire the ability to transmit from human to human, or so that appropriate countermeasures can be deployed if adaptation to humans occurs."
Critics, including the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and a senior U.S. health official maintain that not everyone needs to know how to make a lethal virus.
A heated debate among scientists and academics on balancing national security and academia in scientific research and how to procede will be addressed at a WHO meeting in February.
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