AFX News Limited
Three people may have bird flu on French Indian Ocean island
10.26.2005, 03:21 PM
SAINT DENIS DE LA REUNION, Reunion Island (AFX) - Three people who
recently returned to the French Indian Ocean island of Reunion from
Thailand are feared to be infected with the potentially lethal bird flu
virus, officials said Wednesday.
French Health Minister Xavier Bertrand said in Paris that the 'three
people went together to Thailand where they visited a zoo and were in
contact with birds.'
He said initial tests carried out on Reunion, a French-ruled island in
the middle of the Indian Ocean, had been positive, and samples were
being rushed to Paris for further tests.
'We will have results for the first patient tomorrow,' said Bertrand,
adding that 'for the moment these are only suspicions. Nothing has been
confirmed.'
Earlier authorities on the island said one 43-year-old man had tested
positive for bird flu, while two other people who went on the trip had
'flu-type symptoms' and are undergoing tests.
A doctor at the Bellepierre hospital in the island's main city of Saint
Denis which is treating the man and keeping him in quarantine said he
was believed to have been exposed to the virus during a trip to a bird
park in Thailand during a vacation taken October 12-19.
The doctor speculated that the man might have only a 'benign form' of
bird flu.
Seventeen other people who went on the same trip to Thailand have been
questioned about their health, authorities said.
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