Armenpress

WHO REPORTS ELEVEN SUSPECTED HUMAN BIRD FLU CASES IN AZERBAIJAN

GENEVA, MARCH 10, ARMENPRESS: Eleven suspected
human cases of the highly pathogenic H5N1 bird flu
virus, three of them fatal, are under investigation in
Azerbaijan, the World Health Organization said
Thursday. Maria Cheng, spokeswoman for the UN health
agency, was quoted by ÀFÐ as saying that the suspected
victims, including eight members of a single family,
all came from the same village near the Azerbaijani
capital Baku.
“It is possible that they caught H5N1, because we
already know that poultry were hit by the virus in
neighboring areas,” said Cheng. Flocks belonging to
the patients had also been infected, but experts had
yet to identify by what, she added. Samples from the
suspected human victims were being sent to a
WHO-accredited laboratory in London to establish
whether they had the H5N1 virus, Cheng said. The
results could be available in 24 hours or within two
weeks, depending on the sample quality, she noted.
On Sunday, Azerbaijani authorities said they were
investigating whether the deaths of two young children
in the republic were caused by bird flu. The two
children were part of a family whose six members had
been hospitalized with suspected pneumonia. Several
days earlier, Azerbaijani authorities had said that
the H5N1 virus had hit poultry flocks, and ordered the
slaughter of half a million birds. Since it resurfaced
in 2003, the virus has infected 175 people in seven
countries and killed 96 of them, according to the WHO.

H5N1 spreads from birds to people in close
proximity, but experts fear that it could mutate into
a form that transmits easily among humans, leading to
a global pandemic that could claim millions of lives.