A bus driver in southern China died on Saturday, December 31, after testing positive for the H5N1 bird flu virus. Health authorities said it was the nation’s first reported human case of the deadly disease in 18 months.

The 39-year-old man died of multiple organ failure in the early afternoon after developing symptoms on December 21. China’s official Xinhua news agency reported he had no direct contact with poultry in the month leading up to his death and had not left his home city Shenzhen.

The city of more than 10 million people is in the Guangdong province bordering Hong Kong, where more than 19,000 birds have been slaughtered after three tested positive for the avian influenza virus in mid-December.

The Guangdong health department said 120 people who had close contact with the man have not developed any signs of contraction.the precise source of the disease, however, remains unknown.

“So far, we have not received any reports of any birds being infected,” an official at the Shenzhen agriculture and fisheries bureau said on Saturday. “We will not make any plans to kill domestic birds unless we know that was the source, or if there is any sign of birds being infected.”

High death toll

The H5N1 virus rarely infects humans and is usually only contracted by people in close contact with poultry, yet the disease has proved fatal in about 60 percent of cases. the World Health Organization claim that of 573 confirmed cases, 336 people have died since 2003.

With the world’s largest poultry population, China is considered one of the nations most at risk of a bird flu epidemic. the country’s last reported human case was in June 2010 when a pregnant 22-year-old woman died after being exposed to sick and dead poultry.

Author: Charlotte Chelsom-Pill (AFP, Reuters, AP)Editor: Toma Tasovac

Though the death of a Syrian body builder Mahmoud Ibrahim Alhdidi, 29, has raised speculation that dehydration was the ultimate cause of death, experts say it is not always fatal.

Alhdidi, a participant of Mister Universe 2011 held in Mumbai, was declared dead a day before the competition began. He was supposed to be participating in the 75 kg category and was on a weight control regimen ahead of the event.

Preliminary reports blame dehydration for his death.

However, experts say that other effects which take place along with the dehydration could have caused the death. Dr. S. Jairam of Bombay Hosptial said, “Dehydration is a treatable condition in most cases and is not always fatal. Fatal cases may be caused only by excessive exertion, less fluids in the body or gastroentritis and sudden change in the blood pressure”.

Dr. Anuja Balose of Lilavati Hospital echoed Jairam. “In dehydration cases, the metabolism of the body stops completely which could lead to multiple organ failure if not treated in time,” she said.

She insisted that such cases are however, rare. “It is more common in extremely hot places or when there is an epidemic of diseases like cholera, mostly found in children and the elderly. It is very difficult to say that it can cause sudden death”.

Dehydration symptoms, such as diarrhea, vomiting, fever, shortness of breath, vapid pulse rate etc are noticeable when there is a loss of 2 per cent of the body’s normal water content.

It is known to be fatal in cases where the patient’s symptoms have been left untreated for longer than five days by loss of over 15 per cent of water.

“Alhdidi fell unconscious due to dehydration and was rushed to a hospital in Malad by the organisers where he was declared dead for suspected heart attack,” Indian Bodybuilding and Fitness Federation Secretary, Sanjay More said.

Bowel cancer was misdiagnosed as constipation by GPs at Sale practice

11:20am Thursday 6th January 2011

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a PENSIONER from Sale died just days after an operation to remove a massive tumour from her colon which had gone undiagnosed for months, an inquest heard.

Roselie Smith, 71, first went to Firsway Medical Centre in November 2008 complaining of constipation and lower abdomen pain, and was prescribed laxatives.

the court heard around a year later Ms Smith, who lived on the town’s Granary way, presented again at the surgery with similar symptoms, then in February 2010, and was then seen a further four times in March by doctors at the practice as her symptoms became increasingly worse.

she was eventually admitted as an emergency on March 31 where a CT scan at Trafford General identified a large obstruction in her colon.

But after surgery in May surgeons discovered she had advanced bowel cancer which had spread in to her stomach and was inoperable. she died on May 19 of multi-organ failure.

“I think it had been present for a while,” said consultant surgeon Felix Mazarelo, who performed the operation on Ms Smith, and who told told the court he’d found a “mass” of cancer cells near her pancreas and spleen.

the inquest also heard evidence from Firsway GP, Dr Michael Holloway, who explained how the practice had been amalgamated with two others in 2008 to create a single super surgery, and that Ms Smith had not seen the same doctor twice. “It is a weakness of bigger groups,” he said. “In practice there’s a continuity problem that smaller surgeries don’t suffer with as much.”

But he also said Ms Smith’s symptoms had not been consistent with bowel cancer, and said consitipation, which was what she had been diagnosed with, was “very common” amongst the elderley.

“With old people we see this a lot,” he said. “And with large bowel cancers it’s unusual for them to present with only constipation. There’s usually rectal bleeding, loose stools and a change of bowel habits. she had none of these things.”

Verdict: Natural causes.

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