Materia Medica Malaysiana

Yahoo! News - Bird Flu May Have Passed Between Humans

Does this spell bad news for Malaysia and the rest of Asia?:

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HANOI, Vietnam - Two sisters who died of bird flu in Vietnam may have caught the disease from their brother, in what would be the first known case of human-to-human transmission of the illness in its current outbreak, the World Health Organization (news - web sites) said Sunday.
The source of the two sisters' infection has not yet been conclusively identified, said Bob Dietz, a WHO spokesman in Hanoi.

"However, WHO considers that limited human-to-human transmission from the brother to his sisters is one possible explanation," he said.

Laboratory tests in Hong Kong verified that the sisters, aged 23 and 30, had been infected by the H5N1 bird flu virus, he said.

Vietnam now has a total of 10 confirmed cases of bird flu — eight of whom have died. One 8-year-old girl remains in a Ho Chi Minh City hospital while a 4-year-old boy has recovered and been discharged.

Seven of the cases are children under 14 years of age.

"The investigation failed to reveal a specific event, such as contact with sick poultry, or an environmental source to explain these cases," WHO said of the sisters' deaths. "At the same time, such exposures cannot be discounted, either."

The two women became sick after attending their brother's wedding reception. Their 31-year-old brother died Jan. 14 but was cremated so no samples were available to determine whether he also had bird flu.

The sisters, whose identities have not been released, were admitted to the Institute of Clinical Research for Tropical Medicine on Jan. 13 and died Jan. 23.

Health officials have said they believe the disease is contracted through contact with sick chickens. Up until now, there has been no evidence of human-to-human transmission.

Health officials have warned of the danger that the bird flu virus could combine with a human influenza virus. The two flu viruses could swap genes, resulting in a hybrid with the virulence of bird flu and the contagiousness of human flu, triggering a possible global flu pandemic.

Avian influenza has swept through Asia, infecting millions of chickens in at least 10 countries. Thailand has reported two confirmed human deaths. Governments have been scrambling to destroy the infected birds in a bid to contain the epidemic's spread.

There were instances of limited transmission between people of the H5N1 virus during an outbreak of bird flu in Hong Kong in 1997 which killed six people. That outbreak never developed into a significant public health threat.