Hat tip to Secret Squirrel D for this.
To add to my first two post's today,this paper by de Jong and colleagues in the New England Journal of Medicine details a 4-year old male (4M) who presented with a 2-day history of fever, headache and diarrhoea which after admission progressed; cough, then to coma and death.
4M was found to have systemic influenza A(H5N1) virus infection (viable virus was isolated from cerebrospinal fluid, throat and rectal swabs and were RT-PCR positive).4M and his sister (9F who died 2-weeks previously but had no diagnostic specimens collected) were diagnosed with acute encephalitis.
Chest X-rays were normal and 4M exhibited some lung sounds suggestive of infection after transfer to a paediatric referral hospital and he went on to respiratory failure.
This highlight my earlier points: respiratory viruses could spread from gastrointestinal disease and encephalitis has a lot of causes in addition to the usual suspects.
To add to my first two post's today,this paper by de Jong and colleagues in the New England Journal of Medicine details a 4-year old male (4M) who presented with a 2-day history of fever, headache and diarrhoea which after admission progressed; cough, then to coma and death.
4M was found to have systemic influenza A(H5N1) virus infection (viable virus was isolated from cerebrospinal fluid, throat and rectal swabs and were RT-PCR positive).4M and his sister (9F who died 2-weeks previously but had no diagnostic specimens collected) were diagnosed with acute encephalitis.
Chest X-rays were normal and 4M exhibited some lung sounds suggestive of infection after transfer to a paediatric referral hospital and he went on to respiratory failure.
This highlight my earlier points: respiratory viruses could spread from gastrointestinal disease and encephalitis has a lot of causes in addition to the usual suspects.
