By DPA
Islamabad : A medical team from the World Health Organisation (WHO) arrived in Pakistan Monday to investigate a possible human-to-human transmission of the bird flu virus in the country’s north-west region.
The team, which came from Geneva, was due to travel to the North-West Frontier Province to join other WHO staff in the towns of Manshera and Abbotabad, site of the country’s first human cases of the H5N1 avian influenza virus, the WHO officials here said.
At least two people have died and eight others have been infected in the outbreak that prompted Pakistan’s health ministry to request the WHO to investigate a possible human-to-human transmission.
Human-to-human transmission of H5N1 strain of avian influenza virus is extremely rare but such cases were found among family members in Indonesia, Cambodia and Vietnam.
Bird flu has killed at least 210 people worldwide since 2003. Most human cases of H5N1 are linked to contact with infected birds, but experts fear the virus might mutate into a form that spreads easily among humans, potentially sparking a pandemic that could kill millions of people.