Bird flu cannot be passed from person to person - WHO

Main Category: Bird Flu / Avian Flu
Also Included In: Flu / Cold / SARS
Article Date: 12 Feb 2004 - 0:00 PDT

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After carrying out new tests, the WHO has confirmed that the present bird flu cannot be passed from human-to-human.

They carried out DNA tests on a Vietnamese woman to see whether she had caught the virus from her sister. The tests showed that this was not the case.

Although people can catch the bird flu virus from birds, it needs to mutate in order to pass from person to person. This has not happened.

The father of the first person to die of bird flu in Thailand (a six-year-old boy), said he plans to sue the Thai government for covering up the fact that the virus had been around for a while.

He says that if the government had inform people about the bird flu when it first appeared, his son would still be alive today.

The Thai government, on the other hand, blames the local authorities for messing things up and not identifying the disease earlier on.

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