Tuesday, March 21, 2006
Azerbaijan village site of bird flu outbreak ( 7 human bird flu cases )
GENEVA (CP) — The World Health Organization has confirmed a large cluster of cases of H5N1 infection in Azerbaijan.
Seven cases, including six from one village, were confirmed. Five of the cases have died, including four people in the village in the Salyan Rayon region, the WHO said.
The deaths bring the confirmed fatality rate of the current outbreak of H5N1 over the 100 mark. There have been 184 confirmed cases and 103 confirmed deaths in eight countries since this outbreak began in late 2003.
While the WHO had feared the cluster — five members of an extended family plus a family friend — might have been an instance of human-to-human transmission, investigations are pointing to all members of the cluster having had a common exposure to infected birds, WHO spokesperson Dick Thompson said.
“Initially we were very concerned but that concern has diminished substantially,” Thompson said, adding that the signals WHO would expect to see if there were person-to-person spread haven’t materialized.