The World Health Organisation has now officially confirmed that the H5N1 virus was passed from one person to another in Pakistan. However, they are calling this human transmission of one of the world's most deadliest viruses "limited" :
World Health Organization, WHO, officials say there has been limited human transmission of bird flu in Pakistan - with no new cases reported recently.
WHO's top bird flu official David Heymann Friday, said there appears to be no threat of the further spread of the H5N1 virus, with the last human case reported December 6.
At least eight people were infected in Pakistan's northwest in recent weeks - in the country's first human cases of bird flu.
One man who worked on poultry farm in North West Frontier Province has died. His brother also died recently, but was not tested for the virus.
Heymann says the cases appear to be part of a small chain of human-to-human transmission.
A WHO team is investigating the outbreak and results from initial laboratory tests are expected in the next few days.
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Human-to-Human Transmitted Avian Flu – We have to move from a Cure Strategy to a Prevention Strategy before it is too late
The strategy to prevent hundreds of millions of people dying across the globe from the Avian Flu pandemic is totally flawed. This reliance that governments around the world have placed on predominantly vaccination (cure) only is a decision that history will record as one of the most insane and insidious decisions that has ever been taken by our political leaders. This assertion is based upon the facts that the eventual human-to-human killer virus that will emerge will be a new strain due to the fact that viruses constantly mutate and that owing to the initial incubation period for bird flu to show its ugly face, the virus will have spread like wildfire across the world through millions travelling internationally on a daily basis. Indeed, the avian flu strain is 20 times more virulent than the 1917 Spanish flu that killed between 50 million and 100 million people, but where this time, literally hundreds of millions will literally perish with this ill thought out strategy by our political leaders and governments. What should have been undertaken is that this highly contagious disease should have been addressed at its source (prevention) and where history again will confirm this eventual conclusion. Unfortunately by then, this terrible event will have taken place. Governments should rethink therefore before it is too late and adopt predominantly a ‘field’ strategy, for this is the only strategy that will work and stop the unimaginable happening. Governments have been warned continuously, but where they do not wish to listen due to the powerful overtones delivered to our political leaders by the giant pharmaceuticals in their quest for profits (or selfish greed dependant on which point-of-view one wishes to take). One has to remember also that since 2003 the human mortality rate through the bird flu virus has been 62% and where only 38 people on average out of every hundred has survived. Overall therefore it has to be said that these vast profit-orientated pharmaceutical companies have not stopped any of these deaths through their highly expensive drugs and where things will be no different when the eventual pandemic arrives. It is hoped therefore that for the sake of humankind, that a major sea change takes place within the thinking of our political leaders in 2008, from one of cure to prevention, and before time literally runs out on us all. These are not fear factors but factors derived from pure logic and facts determined by some of the leading authoritative thinkers on the subject.
Dr David Hill
World Innovation Foundation
Bern, Switzerland
UK Postal Address: P O Box A60, Huddersfield,
HD1 1XJ, United Kingdom
UK Tel:0044(0)1484 537181
28th December 2007
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