IRAN BELIEVED TO HAVE HAD ITS FIRST TWO HUMAN BIRD FLU DEATHS

FIVE FAMILY MEMBERS INFECTED, THREE REMAIN SERIOUSLY ILL

From the Sydney Morning Herald : Tests in Iran on the bodies of a brother and sister who died after falling ill with pneumonia-like symptoms showed they had the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu, an Iranian medical official said.

The two - a 41-year-old man and 26-year-old woman - were among five members of the same family who became sick after returning from a trip to the town of Marivan, close to their home in the northwestern city of Kermanshah.

The three surviving relatives were in hospital and one of them remained dangerously ill, the official told Reuters.

Final confirmation tests are being completed outside of Iran, but the results are expected to show avian influenza as the cause of death.

Members of the same family all coming down with H5N1 are termed 'familial cluster infections' in the WHO parlance. Though the wording for this can vary, it means the same thing : one member of the family picks up the virus, and quickly infects those in the closest promixity, usually members of their family.

It is the 'familial infections' that make the blood of bird flu watchers run cold.

When infected people have not been around already infected poultry farms, or when they haven't had close contact with infected birds, and when other members of their family become rapidly infected and die, it doesn't look good at all. Such activity gives all the appearances of one member of a family picking up a form of bird flu that is transmissable between humans, and then they pass it on to those they have the most contact with.

Indonesia has also just experienced a cluster of familial infection, with six members of the same family dying rapidly, in less than eight days.

Iran had its first outbreak in poultry in February. Turkey, Azerbaijan and Iraq all have reported human deaths resulting from bird flu infection, and these countries are all neighbours with Iran.