The WHO 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 recently leaked WHO report, 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 UN 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 wrapped up yesterday, 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 UN 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 sidelines of the meeting. "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 hypothesizes that 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, the H5N1 virus remains hard for people to catch, and most human cases have been traced to contact with infected poultry or wild 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.
Arsenio Butil Jr fell to his knees and began to pray when last week’s deadly magnitude 7.8 earthquake began shaking his home on the coast of the southern Philippines. When he opened his eyes, he saw a once-familiar shoreline changing in real time, with swathes of previously submerged coral suddenly pushing above the waterline. The June 8 quake, driven by a shifting of the nearby Cotabato Trench, toppled buildings, triggered landslides and killed at least 76 people on the southern island of Mindanao. The tectonic forces at work also thrust chunks of the island’s coastline upward in a phenomenon known as “coastal uplift,”
YUCK OR YUM? While it is difficult to sell second-hand goods that are more than seven years old in Japan, they are still popular in foreign markets, an executive said Under a scorching sun in a Bangkok suburb, a whistle blew, and shouts filled the air as dozens of shoppers rushed into a warehouse bearing the sign “Japanese Second-Hand Store.” From bags and bicycles to surfboards and suitcases, the Japanese second-hand market is booming, with quality-conscious buyers in other Asian countries increasingly tapping into the circular economy trend. “What is considered garbage for them can still be useful in Thailand,” said 36-year-old Lookpoo Sathitpanyapon, who runs an online store selling toy keychains. “That bag, that bag,” one shopper shouted while racing through the warehouse, filled with everything from colorful toys
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Saturday said that Russian forces were preparing an impending massive attack on Ukraine and warned residents to take special care as Russian strikes in different regions killed at least six people. “Tonight and in the coming hours, it is especially important to pay close attention to air raid warnings,” Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address. “The Russians have prepared for a massive attack. Please take care of yourselves.” Russian forces have staged a series of heavy attacks on Kyiv in the past few weeks and in other major cities. Strikes on Monday last week killed
Growing up in Tahiti, Anna-Bella Failloux saw first-hand the threat posed by mosquitoes: Nearly one-third of adults on the picturesque island once had swollen limbs from elephantiasis caused by their bites. She has since dedicated her life to studying mosquitoes and the diseases they transmit — a concern that looms ever larger as climate change expands the area where the insects roam. “You have to accept being bitten by a mosquito from time to time,” the 63-year-old entomologist at France’s Pasteur Institute said. “But we have to avoid too many people getting sick and dying from the infections,” Failloux said, as she observed
RSS