Human-to-human
bird flu suspected

May 23, 2006

(Gulf News)

Disease trackers are investigating possible human-to-human transmission of the Asian bird flu in the cases of seven infected people in Indonesia.

The World Health Organization said in a statement today a team of international experts could not find any animals that might have infected the people with the H5N1 virus, reported Bloomberg News.

Six of the seven people have died.

Agency spokesman Maria Cheng said officials might have the first evidence of a three-person chain of transmission. A 10-year-old boy who caught the virus from his aunt might have passed it to his father.

The 32-year-old father, on the island of Sumatra, was “closely involved in caring for his son, and this contact is considered a possible source of infection,” the WHO said in its statement. The agency said three others spent a night in a small room with the aunt, who later died. The sole survivor was among them.

Cheng said if there is strong evidence of human-to-human transmission, the agency could consider raising the pandemic alert level.

The WHO said, however, “To date, the investigation has found no evidence of spread within the general community and no evidence that efficient human-to-human transmission has occurred.”

Health experts fear a deadly global outbreak of flu if the H5N1 develops the ability to spread from human to human. The 1918 Spanish flu pandemic killed an estimated 50 million people around the world.

The WHO has confirmed 218 cases of H5N1 since 2003, but nearly all can be traced to direct contact with sick or dead birds.

“Considering the evidence and the size of the cluster, it’s a possibility,” Cheng said, according to Bloomberg. “It depends on what we’re dealing with in Indonesia. It’s an evolving situation.”

The WHO statement said all confirmed cases “can be directly linked to close and prolonged exposure to a patient during a phase of severe illness.”

In December, the Congressional Budget Office reported a severe pandemic of avian flu hitting the U.S. would kill 2 million Americans and throw the country into a major recession.

The CBO report predicted about 90 million Americans would get sick, health-care facilities would be overwhelmed, schools closed, with the retail sector hard hit and air travel falling by two-thirds.

The agency said in the report issued to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a physician, that even a milder bout would kill 100,000 Americans.

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