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VIENTIANE – Laos’ health ministry confirmed the Mar. 7 death of the first person with the H5N1 avian influenza virus, more than two weeks after she was hospitalised in neighbouring Nongkhai province in Thailand.

The 15-year-old girl, from a suburb of the capital Vientiane, was announced positive for the H5N1 avian influenza virus on Feb. 27. She had been in hospital. since 20 February and died yesterday, 7 March 2007 at approximately 18:30.
 
A World Health Organisation and Lao health ministry statement said that the girl’s exposure to sick poultry was “unclear at this stage” and that “investigations are ongoing”.
 
Intensive contact tracing has been carried out and to date, none of the case contacts has shown signs of infection, the statement said.
 
“The Government is enforcing immediate and stringent interventions such as culling of all infected poultry, strengthening hospital surveillance and carrying out intensive information campaigns to educate people on key preventative measures,” said Dr Ponmek Dalaloy, Laos’ health ministry.
 
“Knowledge can save lives,” added Dr Ponmek. He cited preventive measures such as washing hands frequently with soap, eating thoroughly cooked poultry (no pink meat, no runny eggs), avoiding any contact with sick or dead poultry, slaughtering and handling poultry safely and reporting any sick or dead poultry to local authorities.
 
“The H5N1 strain of avian influenza is known to have an extremely high case fatality rate,” said Dong Il Ahn, WHO Representative in Laos. “This is why prevention measures are critical and foremost in combating the spread of the virus.”
 
The WHO Pandemic Alert Level remains at Phase 3.  This means that the virus has not changed to a form easily transmissible among humans and the incident does not indicate significantly changed risk for pandemic influenza at this time, the statement said.