Isolation of bird flu virus enables worldwide study

Live specimen taken from victim who was infected while in China

TORONTO — Canada’s National Microbiology Laboratory has isolated live H5N1 virus from respiratory specimens taken from an Alberta woman who died recently from infection with that bird flu virus.

The Winnipeg-based lab is working in collaboration with Alberta’s provincial laboratory to sequence the entire genome of the virus, which the woman is believed to have contracted during a three-week trip to China in December.

The woman was unwell on her return trip on Dec. 27, was hospitalized Jan. 1 and died Jan. 3.

This is the first time an H5N1 infection has been detected in North America.

Isolating the virus allows the national lab to do research on this H5N1. Officials at the Winnipeg lab say copies of the virus will be shared with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, which is part of the World Health Organization’s network of influenza reference laboratories.

They also say the full genetic blueprint of the virus will be entered into GISAID, an online influenza database accessible to flu researchers from around the globe.

Canadian and Alberta health officials have been working with authorities from China and from the WHO to determine how the woman became infected.

The woman, a nurse from Red Deer who was originally from China, travelled there with her mother. The pair spent their vacation in Beijing and reportedly did not have exposure to poultry while there. While H5N1 is considered endemic in China, there have been few recent reports of it and none from Beijing. That, along with the woman’s apparent lack of exposure to poultry, has authorities puzzled as to how she was exposed.