Posted on 12/17/2007 9:22:34 AM PST by neverdem
ASSOCIATED PRESS
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- International health experts have been dispatched to Pakistan to help investigate the cause of South Asia's first outbreak of bird flu in people and determine if the virus could have been transmitted through human contact, officials said Sunday. Four brothers -- two of whom died -- and two cousins from Abbotabad, a small city about 30 miles north of Islamabad, were suspected of being infected by the H5N1 virus, said WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl in Geneva. A man and his niece from the same area who had slaughtered chickens were also suspected of having the virus.
Another person in a separate case who slaughtered poultry in nearby Mansehra, 15 miles away, also tested positive for the disease, he said.
Details surrounding the cases remained confusing, with Pakistan's Health Ministry issuing a statement Saturday saying six people had initially tested positive for the virus last month, while the WHO said eight had been reported. Hartl said the discrepancy was likely linked to a technicality since six patients had tested positive using an internationally recommended method while a less reliable test was used on the others.
Specimens were never collected from one of the brothers who died, and many of those who tested positive experienced only mild symptoms and were not hospitalized, Hartl said.
He added a team of WHO experts have been sent to Pakistan to help determine the cause. He said all four brothers were believed to have worked on a farm and poultry outbreaks had earlier been reported in the area. But one brothers, Mohammed Tariq, said only one sibling worked on the farm.
Hartl said WHO has not ruled out limited human-to-human transmission.
"We can't answer that yet," he said. "It's possible."
The H5N1 virus has killed at least 208 people worldwide, mostly in Southeast Asia and China, since it began ravaging Asian poultry stocks in late 2003. So far, most human cases have been linked to contact with sick birds.
A team from the U.S. Naval Medical Research Unit in Cairo was being dispatched to Pakistan to help with the investigation, said Dave Daigle, a spokesman for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.
Khalif Bile, WHO representative in Pakistan, told The Associated Press on Saturday that preliminary tests had been carried out. He said the WHO was encouraging the government to carry out confirmation tests in the same government laboratory and the results should be available by Tuesday.
People who came into contact with those infected in Pakistan are being monitored, the WHO said.
A brother of the two men who died in Pakistan said Saturday he had been hospitalized with flu-like symptoms. Mohammed Ishtiaq said he fell ill last month after slaughtering chickens suspected of carrying bird flu at a farm near Abbottabad.
"I was not aware that this was such a dangerous disease," said Ishtiaq, a veterinary doctor who works for a government-funded livestock program. He said he wore no protective clothing.
His two brothers did not accompany him to the farm, but visited him in a hospital, Ishtiaq told Associated Press Television News in the village of Sukur.
He identified his brothers as Mohammed Ilyas and Mohammed Idrees and said they were both studying at an agriculture college in the northwestern city of Peshawar.
It was unclear if they had other contact with poultry or another potential sources of infection.
Muqarab Khan, director general of livestock and animal husbandry in the province, said animal surveillance was under way across the province.
Poultry vaccine campaigns also have been started and all farms in the surrounding area have been closed.
Pakistan has grappled with outbreaks of bird flu in poultry for the past two years, but had previously not confirmed cases in humans.
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Associated Press reporters Margie Mason in Hanoi, Vietnam, Zarar Khan in Islamabad and Inam ur-Rahman in Sukur contributed to this report.
ISLAMABAD, Dec 17 (Reuters) - A World Health Organization team headed for Pakistan's North West Frontier Province on Monday to investigate how eight people were infected with bird flu, after the country reported its first human death from the virus.
An ignorant doc in the worst neighborhood, what can you say?
It’s like they’re desperate for it to be human to human contact, like they’d be happy about it.
“It’s like they’re desperate for it to be human to human contact, like they’d be happy about it.”
I’ve noticed that. If we have any kind of epidemic a lot of power will devolve to WHO, CDC, etc... It also kicks in all kinds of special, extra-constitutional powers for Federal, State and local bureaucrats.
I read that title and I keep wondering if a man wearing a long scarf will step out of a British police call box with all the answers.
That fellow is a doctor after all....
Anything new since last week’s thread? Appears those who do not believe in evolution would be immune to whatever this is.
Due to shortage of food Afghans are known to feed on migratory birds that fly over Afghanistan.
Oh please indeed. Have you ever heard of the Model State Emergency Health Powers Act which has been passed by many states already? It was pushed hard by Tommy Thompson a few years ago. Here’s a PDF you can read if you want.
http://www.aapsonline.org/legis/msehpa.pdf
Of course with a name like G8 Diplomat.... :)
So...? If there’s an emergency, what’s wrong with taking extra measures to keep the populace safe and sanitary??
Bird flu is real. It’s out there. The question is not IF we will witness a pandemic, but WHEN. This isn’t a conspiracy by CDC to control us, it’s a safety measure. And frankly, we aren’t anywhere prepared enough. We aren’t stockpiling stuff like Tamiflu, which can stop the virus if applied quick enough. The media isn’t reporting much about bird flu here, meanwhile the Canadian, British, Aussie, Indian, and Pakistani media are. Read The Great Infulenza...in the back there’s a section on bird flu and how the US is hopelessly unprepared. There are books written by doctors with similar conclusions.
As for my name....What’s that got to do with anything? I joined FR the day the G8 Summit started last year.
Great....where our troops are. Then again, maybe some Taliban guy will catch it.
“So...? If there’s an emergency, what’s wrong with taking extra measures to keep the populace safe and sanitary??”
Absolutely nothing although they can confiscate your property and that worries me.
“As for my name....What’s that got to do with anything? I joined FR the day the G8 Summit started last year.”
I was just joking with you.
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