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GENEVA
(Reuters) - The World Health Organization (WHO) is not
considering raising its global bird flu alert level, although
its investigation into a family cluster in Indonesia continues,
a senior WHO official said on Friday.
Paul Gully, senior adviser to WHO's top bird flu official
Margaret Chan, also said that health officials in Sumatra were
closely watching 54 people who had contact with the seven dead
family members, but none had showed any symptoms to date.
Questions remained about the outbreak, but the United Nations
agency saw no grounds for raising the current global pandemic
threat from three on a scale of six -- meaning some very limited
human-to-human transmission has occurred.
"Our feeling now is there is nothing new that has happened which
would make us want to consider moving to level four," Gully told
Reuters in an interview in Geneva. |
Level four
would signal evidence of increased human-to-human transmission,
while six is onset of the pandemic, which the WHO has warned
could take millions of lives.
The deadly H5N1 virus has caused 124 deaths among 218 confirmed
cases since late 2003, the WHO says.
None of the 54 people in voluntary home quarantine in the
village in north Sumatra is reported to have bird flu symptoms,
but the next days and weeks will be critical for identifying any
new infections, according to the agency.
"There is no news in terms of the cluster and that is important.
We have not identified any further cases beyond the group, which
means no further transmission has occurred," Gully said.
"There may have been effective human-to-human transmission to a
very close group of people, but beyond that, not." |
The WHO has
sent seven officials to help investigate and the challenge was
"to try to piece together as much as possible," the Canadian
added.
Asked whether there may be a genetic pre-disposition to catching
the virus, Gully said: "It has been raised, clearly it is a
possibility because they were all in the same family, but you
can't jump to that conclusion unless you have all the other
information."
Epidemiologists are watching for any indication that any
non-blood-related contact develops the disease -- a signal that
the virus had moved beyond the immediate family cluster -- WHO
spokeswoman Maria Cheng said.
"The next days will be critical...We are still watching the
wider community to see if anybody turns up sick," she said.
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