World Health Group to Leave Bird Flu Alert Unchanged (Update2)

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Notice this phrase thrown in the mix: The dollar rose against the yen after the WHO said the people may have caught the disease from humans, not animals. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000080 & sid=ah_KBgdElO2k & refer=asia World Health Group to Leave Bird Flu Alert Unchanged (Update2) May 24 (Bloomberg) -- World Health Organization officials don't have immediate plans to ask that experts recommend raising the alert level for a possible avian influenza pandemic, the agency's spokeswoman said. The health agency still lacks evidence that bird flu is becoming more contagious among people, said Cheng, spokeswoman for the United

Nations health group in Geneva, in an interview today. Proof that the virus is spreading from person to person might prompt the WHO eventually to ask a panel of experts to review the alert level, now at the third of six stages. ``There's no evidence from Indonesia that the virus is becoming better adapted for human transmission,'' Cheng said. WHO disease trackers have been analyzing samples of the virus found in seven members of an Indonesian family. ``We're not planning to convene a task force meeting in the immediate future.'' Genetic sequencing is incomplete for samples of the H5N1 virus strain from the seven Indonesians, Cheng said. The dollar rose against the yen after the WHO said the people may have caught the disease from humans, not animals. Cases involving sustained human transmission would suggest the virus has undergone genetic changes making it more infectious. The U.S. currency's rise in overnight trading reflected

concerns about emerging market investments. The Indonesian rupiah, Thai baht and Singapore dollar also fell in overnight trading against the dollar. `Safe Haven' ``You're seeing the dollar as a safe haven,'' said , chief currency trader at Manufacturers & Traders Trust in Buffalo, New York. The WHO's finding yesterday is still affecting current markets, he said. ``Anything such as that, the dollar gets a bid.'' A pandemic such as the one that killed 50 million people in 1918 may take more than 142 million lives and cause the world's economy to shrink by an eighth, according to a report in February by the Lowy Institute and Australian National University. At least 124 of 218 people known to have been infected with the H5N1 virus have died, the WHO said yesterday. Almost all of the cases confirmed by the WHO since late 2003 can be traced to direct contact with sick or dead birds. Disease

trackers found strong evidence in 2004 of direct human-to-human transmission of H5N1 in Thailand. In that case, the H5N1 virus probably spread from an 11-year-old girl to her aunt and mother, killing the mother and daughter, scientists reported in the Jan. 27, 2005, issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. People who had casual contact with the girl weren't infected. Sumatra Probe The possible human-to-human spread in Indonesia was also linked to direct contact with severely ill people, the WHO said yesterday. Preliminary findings from the investigation indicate that a woman who died, considered to be the initial case, was coughing frequently while three others, her brother and two sons, spent the night in the same room. Another Sumatran bird-flu victim, a 10-year-old boy, may have caught the virus from his aunt and passed it along to his 32-year-old father, who died May 22. If confirmed, that would be the first three-person

chain of transmission with H5N1, the WHO said. On the WHO's six-level pandemic alert system, level three means ``no or very limited human-to-human transmission.'' To raise the alert to the next level, the agency would have to see ``evidence of increased human-to-human transmission,'' or signs that the virus has gained the ability to spread through more casual contact. Search for Cases A 10-year-old girl probably died yesterday of avian flu in Indonesia's West Java province, the Jakarta Post reported, citing Djatnika, a hospital official in Bandung, the provincial capital. The case is unrelated to the family cluster on Sumatra. An international team of experts joined local authorities last week on Sumatra to try to pinpoint how the people became infected with H5N1 in the past month. ``Priority is now being given to the search for additional cases of influenza-like illness in other family members, close

contacts, and the general community,'' the WHO said. At least 30 people identified as possibly having been in contact with the infected people are being interviewed, said Bjorge, a technical officer with the WHO in Jakarta. A temporary command post will coordinate fever surveillance in Kubu Sembelang, the village in North Sumatra's Karo District, where most of the family members lived, said Sari Setiogi, a WHO spokeswoman in Jakarta. Infectious disease training will be conducted at the local hospital, she said. The investigation has so far found no evidence of a spread within the general community and no evidence that efficient human-to-human transmission has occurred, the WHO said. ``It appears that this virus has not gone outside this family cluster,'' said Cordingley, a spokesman with the WHO in the Philippines capital, Manila. So far the virus ``has shown no signs of mutation.''

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