MEXICO CITY.- The Mexican Minister of Health, Jorge Alcocer, rejected the advertisement published by the World Health Organization (WHO) about the first human death from bird flu in the world, detected in a laboratory Mexicoand assured that the death occurred “for another reason”, which has yet to be determined.
“The statement made by the World Health Organization is quite bad, since from the outset it talks about a fatal case, which was not the case, he died from another cause and without a ruling having been made,” Alcocer said during a press appearance. .
Alcocer explained that the patient was treated at the National Institute of Respiratory Diseases (INER) and suffered from various illnesses, such as diabetes and kidney problems. The health services took several samples and in one of them the influenza A (H5N2) virus was actually found, linked to avian flu.
“Of course, in this case, it can certainly be an epidemiological warning in the case of the actions that are taken for workers who care for birds (…) We know that the virus regularly affects birds and that infections in humans that occur have been detected (…) they are very mild,” he highlighted.
Thus, the Mexican Minister of Health stressed that the death confirmed by the WHO did not occur due to avian flu, also ensuring that there is no risk to the consumption of farmed birds by the population. Alcocer urged taking the “not precise” information from the WHO “with caution.”
These words from the Mexican Minister of Health come a few hours after the WHO confirmed that the first death from avian flu in the world had occurred in Mexico, although the source of exposure in this particular case, whose victim died, is unknown. April 24th.
In its statement, the WHO recognized that the case had “multiple underlying conditions” and assured that Mexico is still continuing with investigations to determine the probable source of exposure to the virus. The victim was admitted to the hospital with fever, difficulty breathing, diarrhea, nausea and general malaise.
