Previously, on April 11, the baby gird presented with symptoms such as fever, headache, and frequent vomiting. After being admitted to the provincial hospital for a two-day treatment period without improvement, the patient was subsequently transferred to HCMC based Children's Hospital 1.
At the time of admission to Children's Hospital 1, the patient displayed drowsiness, confusion, and a mild stiff neck, and was diagnosed with encephalitis.
Doctors took samples of cerebrospinal fluid and respiratory specimens and sent them to the Laboratory Department of the Tropical Diseases Hospital and the PCR test results of the cerebrospinal fluid were positive for influenza A/H5; the PCR test of respiratory specimens was negative for influenza. Children's Hospital 1 continued to send samples to the Pasteur Institute of Ho Chi Minh City to confirm the diagnosis.
The institute confirmed that the cerebrospinal fluid sample tested positive for influenza A/H5N1, while the nasopharyngeal swab tested negative for influenza viruses.
Simultaneously, the institute issued an urgent dispatch to report the findings to the Department of Disease Prevention under the Ministry of Health. The pediatric patient remains in isolation and is receiving treatment at the Department of Infectious Resuscitation of Children's Hospital 1.
According to the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Health, as soon as the preliminary test results were available, the department directed the Ho Chi Minh City Center for Disease Control to coordinate with Children's Hospital 1 and the Center for Disease Control of Tay Ninh Province to investigate the epidemic and handle the outbreak according to regulations.
Her relatives revealed that the child had been in contact with a group of deceased chickens at their grandmother's residence two weeks prior. The patient, who is the second child in the family, has a medical history of congenital heart disease (ventricular septal defect) and underwent surgery at Children's Hospital 1 when she was 2 months old.
According to infectious disease experts, this is a rare instance in which the A/H5N1 avian influenza virus has affected the central nervous system without involving the respiratory tract.
Typically, A/H5N1 causes outbreaks among poultry and waterfowl, with human infections arising from close contact with infected or deceased birds. The hallmark symptom in human cases is severe pneumonia, often progressing to acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), with a mortality rate exceeding 50 percent. Fortunately, there has been no confirmed human-to-human transmission of the A/H5N1 virus to date.
The Department of Health has sent an official dispatch to the Ministry of Health, and at the same time directed Children's Hospital 1 to actively treat the patient, strictly comply with infection prevention regulations, and continue to coordinate with infectious disease experts from the Hospital for Tropical Diseases and the Oxford University Clinical Research Unit (OUCRU) to conduct in-depth research on this special case.
