BEIJING, March 5 (Xinhuanet) -- In an attempt to find information to fight a possible global outbreak of the H5N1 bird flu virus, UK scientists are seeking to exhume the body of a British diplomat who died of Spanish flu during the 1919 pandemic that killed more than 40 million people worldwide, media reports said Monday.

    Famous for his work breaking up the Ottoman Empire, Sir Mark Sykes was buried in a lead-lined coffin, which may have preserved enough human tissue to yield useful information on how he died and the nature of the avian flu that killed him.

    "We're after an intact body," said John Oxford, a professor of virology at Queen Mary's College. "Sometimes people who have been buried in lead are very well preserved. If we obtain (the body), then we can ask a lot of important questions about the way that Sir Mark died."

    Victims of Spanish flu frequently experienced an overly aggressive immune response. The same phenomenon has been seen in human H5N1 cases.

    "The first thing we'll be looking at is the pathology of the lung -- whether he was overwhelmed by his own immune response," Oxford said.

    Spanish flu victims have been studied before -- including Inuit bodies recovered from the Arctic permafrost and corpses of World War I soldiers. Oxford said it was extremely difficult to locate flu victims who were buried in lead-lined coffins, in part because few records were kept about coffins.

    In addition, it can be difficult to find the descendants of victims.

    However, Sykes was a famous victim because of his diplomatic status, and his coffin was photographed before he was interred.

    Although permission has been obtained from Sykes¡¯family, Oxford said he still needs permission from Britain's health and safety body. He said it would not be known how well Sykes¡¯body was preserved until his coffin was opened.

    "These are all expectations and hopes that can be easily dashed," he said.

    Although he was a Roman Catholic, Sykes was buried in a Church of England graveyard at St. Mary Sledmere church, near his ancestral home about 200 miles north of London.

    The Church of England has granted permission to unearth the corpse, ruling that the possible benefit -- and the family¡¯s approval -- outweighed the church's strong preference for leaving human remains undisturbed.

    (Agencies)