Iraq fights new war against bird flu

The Middle East’s first case of the virus appeared in a 15-year-old girl from the Kurdistan town of Raniya who died on January 17. But it is unclear if she contracted the disease from domestic or migratory birds, or by some other means.

Her uncle who shared the same house, in which live chickens were brought to protect from the cold, died 10 days later after suffering pulmonary complications. That raised fears that he also contracted the virus from a bird or, possibly, directly from his niece.

If the latter, it could mean that the bird flu virus has mutated into a strain capable of sparking a worldwide pandemic capable of killing millions.

Scientists in Cairo and London are awaiting samples from the uncle to learn whether the girl’s uncle had the known H5NI avian influenza strain, contracted directly from birds. About 160 cases of the virus have been reported worldwide, and 85 people have died.

Experts so far are playing down the idea of the emergence of a human-to-human form of the disease, but said it cannot be ruled out completely until thorough laboratory tests have been undertaken.

“We do acknowledge the possibility no matter how small it would be, (of a human-to-human transfer), and if this has happened then this emergency is elevated one very significant notch,” said Dr. Sam Yingst, a veterinary virus expert from the Egypt-based US Navy Medical Research Unit, who arrived in Iraq for a week-long inspection of the north.

Iraqi health authorities confirmed January 30 that the girl contracted bird flu and immediately implemented a mass culling of domestic birds across northern Iraq’s Kurdistan region, killing more than 500,000 in a bid to contain the disease.

Dr. Saedi Tayeb, who heads one of three medical teams in Kurdistan trying to contain bird flu, said inspection teams scoured Sulaimaniyah, 260 kilometres (160 miles) northeast of Baghdad, looking for further bird flu cases.

Health officials have also raised the alarm throughout the country, particularly in southern Iraq, where migratory birds possibly carrying the H5N1 strain fly en route to Kuwait and eventually South Africa.

A six-member World Health Organisation team arrived in the northern city of Irbil yesterday, and are expected to be joined by Yingst and another expert from the US Navy lab in Cairo specialising in animal disease control.

The field trips are aimed at learning how the virus was introduced to Iraq, assessing the performance of local authorities in containing its spread and investigating people suffering from bird flu-like symptoms, said WHO spokesman Dick Thompson.

“The virus is in the environment somewhere and the team needs to identify its source, how widespread it is and assess how well prepared the region or provinces might be to respond to an outbreak,” Thompson said in a telephone interview from the Jordanian capital, Amman.

But it would be “highly unlikely” that a mutated strain of H5N1 capable of being transmitted among humans had emerged, he said.

“Still, these cases have to be thoroughly investigated because we need to know what is going on,” Thompson said.

There have been six possible cases of human-to-human contraction since bird flu first emerged, but the virus in each case died out with the second infected person, indicating it was not virulent enough to spread to large numbers of people, he added.

Health experts stress that Iraqis run a slim chance of contracting bird flu, but said more effort is needed to promote safe hygiene practices and better equip cullers and people dealing closely with domestic birds.

“There is not enough of anything anywhere,” US Embassy health attache Jon Bowersox said. “There is an understanding of the needs and there will be efforts” from the United Nations and US to “assist” Iraqis demands.

On Friday, the WHO said a large shipment of the anti-flu drug, Tamiflu, is being sent to Iraq to treat up to 10,000 people.

Iraq’s Health Minister Abdel Mutalib Mohammed said between eight to 10 people have been admitted to northern Iraqi hospitals suffering from respiratory infections and doctors are assessing them to learn if they have bird flu, Bowersox said.

But US expert Yingst cautioned against assuming there had been a wider outbreak, saying winter’s cold weather is responsible for multiple influenza viruses with symptoms resembling H5N1.

“Many people with seasonal epidemic influenza become viewed as suspected cases of avian influenza,” he said. ”The paranoia takes over.”