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"It was definitely person-to-person. That is confirmed," said Maqbool Jan Abbasi, Ministry of Health joint secretary. He said the World Health Organisation confirmed by serological testing from a family in Peshawar, northwest of the capital Islamabad, three brothers had H5N1, the strain of avian influenza that can be deadly in humans.

"Two of the brothers had no contact with birds," Abbasi said. One brother who did not have contact with birds died and was buried, and his blood could not be tested.

For cultural reasons they did not exhume the body to test him for bird flu, Abbasi said. But he added they feel certain he died of bird flu.

Brothers in the clear
"The other two brothers, including the one who culled birds, did have the virus. Now they are okay, clear of all symptoms," he said.

Theirs were the first human cases of bird flu in Pakistan and were reported in November 2007. The human-to-human transmission of the virus raises the concern about the bird flu danger and the country will have to be more careful, Abbasi said.

Pakistan already has quarantine rooms ready for when people are suspected to have bird flu, he said. "We will have to be more careful in the future," he said.

Pakistan's poultry population has seen multiple outbreaks of the H5N1 strain since 2006, but still only the one case of humans getting the virus. The last outbreaks reported by Pakistani health officials was on three farms near the southern city of Karachi last February where they were limited only to fowls with no humans being infected.

Bird flu has killed at least 232 people worldwide from at least 366 cases since 2003. Scientists have long feared the virus may mutate into a form more easily transmissible among humans, possibly killing millions. – (Sapa)

April 2008

Read more:
Bird flu risk increasing
All-round bird flu vaccine hope
 

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