Teams to help Iraq with bird flu fight

BAGHDAD, Iraq – American and U.N. health experts tried Sunday to help this war-ravaged country fight a new battle against bird flu, and officials said at least eight people have been hospitalized with symptoms similar to those caused by the virus.

Under U.S. military guard, American and World Health Organization epidemiologists, veterinary experts and clinicians are expected to work together across the northern Kurdistan region to find out how the disease entered Iraq and how to contain it. The teams arrived over the weekend.

The country’s first case of the virus appeared in a 15-year-old girl from the Kurdistan town of Raniya who died Jan. 17. But it is not clear whether she contracted the disease from domestic or migratory birds, or by some other means.

Her uncle, who lived in the same house in which live chickens were brought to protect them from the cold, died 10 days later after suffering pulmonary complications.

That raised fears that he might have contracted the virus directly from his niece.

Experts are closely watching the spread of the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu to see if it mutates into a form easily transmissible from human to human. They fear that such a mutation could spark a worldwide pandemic.

According to WHO, about 160 cases of the virus have been reported worldwide, and at least 85 people have died. Scientists in Cairo, Egypt, and London are awaiting samples from the uncle to learn whether he had the H5N1 strain.

Experts said they cannot completely rule out the emergence of a human-to-human form of the disease until thorough laboratory tests have been done.

A six-member WHO team arrived in the northern city of Irbil on Sunday and is expected to be joined by experts from the U.S. Navy lab in Cairo specializing 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, WHO spokesman Dick Thompson said.