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WHO to investigate bird flu concerns in Pakistan

* People who were in contact with infected persons being monitored

ISLAMABAD: International health experts have been dispatched to Pakistan to help investigate the cause of South Asia’s first human bird flu cases and determine if the virus could have been transmitted from person to person, a World Health Organisation official said on Sunday.

Four brothers – two of who died – and two cousins from Abbotabad were suspected of being infected by the H5N1 virus along with a man and his niece from the same area who had slaughtered chickens, said WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl. Another person who slaughtered poultry in Mansehra also tested positive for the disease, Hartl said.

Details surrounding the cases remained confusing, with the Health Ministry issuing a statement on Saturday saying six people had initially tested positive for the virus last month, while WHO said eight cases had been reported.

Hartl said the discrepancy was likely because six patients had tested positive using an internationally recommended method while a less reliable test was used on the others. Specimens were never collected from one of the brothers who died, and several of those who tested positive were not hospitalised, Hartl said. Hartl said WHO had not ruled out limited human-to-human transmission. “We can’t answer that yet,” he said. A US medical research team is being dispatched to Pakistan to help with the investigation, US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention spokesman Dave Daigle said.

Monitoring: People who came into contact with those infected in Pakistan are being monitored, WHO said. Khalif Bile, WHO representative in Pakistan, said that preliminary tests had been carried out. He said WHO was encouraging the government to carry out confirmation tests in the government laboratory and the results should be available by Tuesday.

The WHO team sent to Abbotabad to help investigate the causes of the outbreak have visited the affected area and collected samples for laboratory tests, Daily Times Monitoring reported. The team who visited Abbotabad would visit the affected areas of Mansehra tomorrow, Aaj TV reported.

The Health Ministry said it was treating people who had been in contact with those infected, setting up isolation wards and procuring drugs for treatment and protective clothing for health workers.

Muqarab Khan, director general livestock and animal husbandry in the province, said animal surveillance was under way across the province. Vaccination campaigns have also been started, he said. ap

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