INTERVIEW-Bird flu cases are reminder of threat - WHO expert
Source: Reuters
(updates 6th paragraph with new global toll) By Stephanie Nebehay GENEVA, Jan 12 (Reuters) - A recent spate of human bird flu cases from Egypt to China is a new warning that the virus could yet spark a pandemic, a top WHO official said on Friday. Keiji Fukuda, coordinator for the global influenza programme at the World Health Organisation (WHO), also said there was "no evidence" of any human-to-human transmission of the virus, including in hard-hit Indonesia. But the potential of the H5N1 virus to mutate and spread more easily between people remains a threat, although public complacency may have set in during several relatively quiet months, the U.S. expert warned. "It really looks like this has a kind of seasonal pattern that increases in winter months in the northern hemisphere. I think that is what we're seeing right now," Fukuda told Reuters in an interview. "I think that our concern about the virus and its potential ability to continue to evolve and become more transmissible to people remains. It's not that these new cases increase it, our concerns have been high all along," he added. In recent weeks, China, Indonesia and Egypt have reported new cases to the U.N. agency, which has recorded a total of 265 cases, including 159 fatalities, since 2003. Indonesian authorities said on Friday a 37-year-old woman in western Java had died of bird flu and four people -- including her husband and son -- were being treated for its symptoms. "We don't have evidence of human-to-human transmission, it is one of the things that we're always looking for. But in the recent group of cases, we don't have any evidence that that's what we are seeing in any of these cases -- anywhere," he said. TENACIOUS VIRUS In Egypt, three members of an extended family died of the disease in late December, after slaughtering a flock of sick ducks, bringing the country's fatalities to 10 in the past year. No other cases have been identified in Africa, where many birds migrate and disease surveillance is deemed weakest. Early bird flu symptoms, including fever, mimic those of other common diseases on the continent, including dengue and typhoid fever. "Even though we haven't had any reports of H5N1 in Africa recently, by far the biggest mistake that any of us can make is to be lulled into thinking that it has just disappeared from an area. Over and over again the virus shows how tenacious it is," Fukuda said. Referring to poultry outbreaks, he added: "If we look at the recent activity in the past few months, we can see that H5N1 reappeared in Vietnam, a country which has had really very good control, clearly through extensive disease control efforts, and we have seen it reappear in South Korea, a similar situation." In a rare case, South Korea on Thursday said a poultry worker's antibodies had shown infection with the deadly strain late last year, although the person did not develop symptoms. Fukuda said the case merited further study. Asymptomatic cases were suspected in Hong Kong in 1997, when the virus was first identified, he said. "That has been one of the questions related to this virus -- how often do people develop either no symptoms or symptoms mild enough to escape notice? We don't know the answer to that ... "
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