The avian influenza virus is unlikely to cause a pandemic among
humans, experts attending the APEC Symposium on Emerging Infectious
Diseases said yesterday.
Although the virus has killed more than 100 people around the
world, it's not spread easily between people, said Zeng Guang,
chief epidemiologist of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and
Prevention (China CDC).
So far 16 cases of human infection have been reported in China.
"We've found that some of the patients had immune deficiencies and
two were pregnant," Zeng said.
The reason why they were infected remains unclear, but "We know
that humans are not generally susceptible to the virus," Zeng told
China Daily at the two-day APEC symposium, which opened in
Beijing yesterday. Most of the human cases in China had direct
contact with diseased poultry.
Although realistically it's likely that large numbers of people
have come into contact with diseased poultry, only "a very small
number" of them were infected by the virus. This means the virus
isn't spread by airborne particles, said Henk Bekedam,
representative of the World Health Organisation?(WHO) in
China.
If it could be spread through the air it's impossible that there
are less than 200 human cases in the world, Bekedam noted.
After taking samples from healthy people living with infected
people, Zeng said, "We found the virus in respiratory systems of
some of those tested." However, the virus in the respiratory system
"cannot really infect the person," he added.
This is because people are not susceptible to the virus now
whether it is carried by poultry, animals or humans, he
observed.
Both Zeng and David Nabarro, senior UN system coordinator for
avian and hunan influenza, said there are no people who have been
infected with the virus but showed no symptoms.
Nabarro appreciated China's efforts to fight the deadly disease.
He said China has contributed to the international effort against
bird flu by achieving great progress in preventing and controlling
the disease in the country. He added that the UN is expecting China
with its experience and knowledge to make a greater contribution to
the global fight against bird flu.?
Bekedam?noted that information sharing should go on in all
countries. "We hope China can share more information and samples of
bird flu rapidly, regularly and globally," he said.
Wang Yu, director of China CDC, disclosed at the symposium that
China would provide four samples of human bird flu virus to the WHO
-- the second such contribution from the country.
"The handover is still in process," Wang said.
China forwarded two bird flu virus samples along with other
virus information to the WHO in December.
Wang said laboratory tests of China's human victims show there
have been no mutations involving the deadly H5N1 strain of avian
flu.
(Xinhua News Agency, China Daily April 5, 2006)