It is possible that they all had common exposure to sick poultry but it is also possible there may have been human to human transmission. We don't have enough information to draw a hypothesis either way. |
It was ruled out before because all the indications at the time were that it was not bird flu ... Tests done in a laboratory in Baghdad had come back negative. |
It would not be surprising if it had spread from Turkey, but at the same time, we have no evidence yet that it has. |
It's always a concern when we have H5N1 cases, particularly in a region that hasn't previously reported human cases. That shows us that the virus is still a threat to public health and clearly that it has a capacity to move and to infect humans. |
Our office in Beijing was informed of this today. It is in a province that hasn't identified human cases before but it is somebody who seems to have a history of exposure to poultry. |
Right now these new cases in Turkey, they don't elevate the global risk assessment, so we're still in the same pandemic alert phase that we've been in for the last couple of years. But it's something that needs to be monitored very closely. |
She had similar symptoms and the clinical course of her illness was the same. So it would be very probable that she died of H5N1, but right now we don't have the laboratory test to prove that. |
Since we've been talking about this containment strategy, we've given the very big qualifier that we think it may fail. |
So far it looks like the same pattern. |
So that clearly would elevate their risk. |
spare one city's pride. |
testing and monitoring of more than 300 close contacts failed to detect any further cases. |
The laboratory in the U.K. said that they have detected H5N1 in samples from the two fatal cases. |
The more chances H5N1 has to infect people, the more chances it has to evolve into a form that could spark a pandemic. And the place we're seeing the most human infections right now is Indonesia. |
The response has been very fast and very transparent. |