WHO: Bird flu likely spread among family members
(AP)
Updated: 2006-06-22 14:34
JAKARTA, Indonesia - The World Health Organization concluded that
human-to-human transmission likely occurred among seven relatives who died from
bird flu on Indonesia's Sumatra Island, while an animal health expert said the
disease was more widespread in poultry than previously thought.
In a
report obtained by The Associated Press, WHO experts said the cluster's first
case was probably infected by sick birds and spread the disease to six family
members living in a remote village. One of those cases, a boy, then likely
infected his father, it said.
The U.N. agency stressed the virus had not
mutated in any major way and that no cases were detected beyond members of the
family, who died last month.
"Six confirmed H5N1 cases likely acquired
(the) H5N1 virus through human-to-human transmission from the index case ...
during close prolonged contact with her during the late stages of her illness,"
the report said.
The report was distributed at a closed meeting in
Jakarta attended by some of the world's top bird flu experts. The three-day
session that wraps up Thursday, was convened after Indonesia asked for
international help. The country has recorded the world's highest number of human
bird flu cases this year, and 39 of those infected have died.
More
outbreaks also are occurring in poultry than earlier thought, said Jeff Mariner,
an animal health expert from Tufts University working with the U.N. Food and
Agriculture Organization in Jakarta.
He is coordinating a pilot project
that involves local surveillance teams conducting field interviews to track
backyard poultry that have rapidly died. The teams then use bird flu test kits
to identify outbreaks.
In the 12 pilot districts on Java Island, 78
poultry outbreaks were detected from January to May. Birds discovered in those
outbreaks were slaughtered to limit the spread of infection.
"We thought
there was dramatic underreporting, but we never imagined that it would be so
pervasive," Mariner said on the meeting's sidelines. "These numbers of outbreaks
only represent, say, a third of the coverage in the district."
The
experts were expected to discuss Sumatra's large family cluster during the
session. One of the remaining mysteries is why only blood relatives - not
spouses - became infected.
The WHO report theorizes the family shared a
"common genetic predisposition to infection with H5N1 virus with severe and
fatal outcomes." However, there is no evidence to support that.
Keiji
Fukuda, WHO's coordinator for the Global Influenza Program in Geneva, said the
Indonesian case appears to resemble other family clusters where limited
human-to-human transmission occurred following close contact. He said scientists
must find out whether anything is different about the way the virus is behaving.
"The really critical factor is why did that cluster develop?" he said.
"What's the reason why people in a cluster got infected?"
Bird flu has
killed at least 130 people worldwide since it began ravaging Asian poultry
stocks in late 2003. Experts fear the virus will mutate into a form that spreads
easily among people, potentially sparking a pandemic. So far, it remains hard
for people to catch, and most human cases have been traced to contact with
infected birds.
Indonesian officials said the country lacks manpower and
money to battle the H5N1 virus alone. The government has been saddled with a
series of natural disasters, including the 2004 tsunami and an earthquake last
month on Java Island.
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