Special report: Global fight against bird flu

World Health Organization (WHO) said Tuesday the cases of H5N1 avian influenza among people in Pakistan have risen to eight. (File Photo) Photo Gallery>>>

    BEIJING, Dec. 19 (Xinhuanet) -- World Health Organization (WHO) said Tuesday the cases of H5N1 avian influenza among people in Pakistan have risen to eight.

    WHO spokesman Greg Hartl gave the confirmation about the first such cases in Pakistan's remote North-West Frontier province through a telephone interview.

    He detailed that one patient died, six recovered and one remained under medical supervision in the cities of Abbotabad and Mansehra.

    The eight cases have a combination of infections from poultry and limited person-to-person transmission from close contact, according to Keiji Fukuda, coordinator of WHO's global influenza program.

    "Right now it doesn't look like pure human to human transmission. It looks like the veterinarian, who was the index case, and a number of other suspect cases had poultry exposure," Fukuda said in an interview.

    "It is definitely possible that we have a mixed scenario where we have poultry to human infection and possible human to human transmission within a family, which is not yet verified."

    But human-to-human transmission "would not be particularly surprising or unprecedented," he added.

    Pakistani and WHO officials said there was no immediate cause for alarm and the United Nations agency was not raising its level of pandemic alert for the time being.

    Fukuda said it was very reassuring that "we are not seeing large increases in the number of cases."

    But some public health officials worry that should the virus gain the ability to transmit easily among humans, a pandemic could occur.

    Hartl said, "Our concern is that once this virus remains in the animal population, it mutates into a more transmissible form. And the more they (the viruses) stay in the animal population, then we have a panic situation."

    The WHO Tuesday noted the death of Indonesia's latest avian flu patient, a 47-year-old man from Tangerang who died Dec 13. The country's overall H5N1 count has reached 115 cases with 93 deaths.

    Since 2003, the health agency has tallied 341 cases among people in 14 countries and regions, 210 of them fatal.

    (Agencies)