Reuters 21 Dec 07;
The World Health Organisation (WHO) suspects there has been only limited human-to-human transmission of the H5N1 virus in Pakistan, but international test results are still pending, a top official said on Friday.
David Heymann, WHO assistant director-general for health security and environment, also said that no new suspect human bird flu cases had emerged in Pakistan since December 6, signaling there had been no further spread.
Global health experts fear that bird flu could mutate into a form that spreads easily from one person to another, triggering a pandemic that could kill millions of people.
Pakistan announced last week that 8 people had been infected since late October, including a veterinarian involved in culling whose two brothers died. A WHO team has investigated the outbreak, and international laboratory results on samples taken are now expected at the weekend.
"The team feels that this could be an instance of close contact human-to-human transmission in a very circumscribed area and non-sustained, just like happened in Indonesia and Thailand," Heymann told a news briefing in Geneva.
In Thailand, a mother was killed by the virus in 2004 after cradling her dying infected daughter all night. The largest known cluster of human bird flu cases worldwide occurred in May 2006 in the Karo district of Indonesia's North Sumatra province, where as many as 7 people in an extended family died.
Keiji Fukuda, coordinator of WHO's global influenza program, told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday the cases in Pakistan are probably a combination of infections from poultry and limited person-to-person transmission due to close contact from caring for a sick loved one.
(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Jonathan Lynn)
WHO says mass bird flu vaccinations not necessary
Channel NewsAsia 22 Dec 07;
GENEVA - The World Health Organisation (WHO) said Friday there was no need for a massive vaccine campaign against the bird flu virus (H5N1) because it has not been proven that it would become a pandemic.
"There is no evidence available that would say that we should begin vaccinating populations across the board with H5N1 at this point in order to prevent a pandemic because it is not known what may cause a pandemic," WHO Assistant Director General David Heymann told reporters.
H5N1, which has caused 209 deaths out 340 afflicted since 2003, is not the only virus that could start a flu pandemic, he added. Other viruses, such as H5, H7 or H9, pose the same threat, he said.
Heymann said many countries are considering a widespread vaccination campaign as part of a 'first protection' barrier, which would act as an insurance plan for the population.
However, he recalled that the swine flu vaccinations in 1976 in the United States had a lot of side effects.
"So a country would have to weight whether or not that insurance policy of getting a lower level of immunity against a virus which could cause a pandemic is as important as the side effect which might occur from that vaccine," he said.
Earlier this month WHO responded to the case of a father and son in China dying from H5N1 earlier this month.
There were three possible explanations for the father-son case: either they were infected by the same animal, by transmission between them, or by exposure to two different infected animals.
The deadly H5N1 strain has passed from human to human only in very rare cases but scientists fear that such transmission could become more efficient and widespread through mutation, causing a global pandemic.
- AFP /ls
