"The boy developed symptoms on 1 February and died four days later after being hospitalised for severe pneumonia." "Our team has already reached Kurdistan [in northern Iraq] to help with prevention programmes and evaluate the situation in the area," said Maria Cheng, a spokeswoman for the WHO in Geneva. "This new case in the south of Iraq is going to be analysed in UK laboratories."
The Bird Flu is spreading in the hard to quarantine Iraq war zone just brimming with insurgents, terrorists, smugglers and displaced persons. It keeps getting closer to U.S. and British troops in Iraq. Hopefully, the strain will not mutate into a human-to-human version any time soon as it would be all to easy to reach America and Western Europe via returning military personnel. Then we will all be fighting a war. David Bier http://web.krg.org/articles/article_detail.asp?ArticleNr=9258&LangNr=12&LNNr=28&RNNr=70 8 Feb 2006 IRAQ: Suspected bird flu case appears in south BAGHDAD, 8 February (IRIN) - Laboratory tests are to be carried out on blood samples from a 13-year-old boy from the southern city of Ammarah, who died from bird flu-like symptoms on 5 February. "Our team has already reached Kurdistan [in northern Iraq] to help with prevention programmes and evaluate the situation in the area," said Maria Cheng, a spokeswoman for the WHO in Geneva. "This new case in the south of Iraq is going to be analysed in UK laboratories." Ammarah is some 360 km southeast of the capital, Baghdad, The boy developed symptoms on 1 February and died four days later after being hospitalised for severe pneumonia. Although no poultry deaths had been reported in the area, pet birds kept by the family reportedly died when the symptoms first emerged, the WHO reported. "After unofficial laboratory tests, we confirmed the case and requested urgent help from the Ministry of Health and the WHO," said Dr Ali Abdullah of Ammarah's main hospital. In northern Iraq, a 15-year-old girl died of bird flu on 17 January in the town of Raniya, along with two other suspected cases of the H5N1 virus, including the girl's uncle, according to a statement from the WHO. Samples from the girl's uncle are currently being tested at WHO facilities in the UK, although the specimens already tested positive for H5N1 infection in a local laboratory. The WHO has confirmed that seven patients are now being treated for similar symptoms in hospitals in Sulaimaniyah, in northern Iraq. Most of the patients reported a history of direct contact with poultry, the health organisation stated. Local medical workers say that many more cases are suspected in the north. Dr Ahmed Talbiti, an infections specialist in Sulaimaniyah, said there had been concern about a total of 26 suspected cases in the north, but that 15 had already been confirmed as negative. The rest, he added, are currently being tested in local laboratories. Prevention procedures, meanwhile, have been ongoing. About one million birds and chickens have been culled so far, according to local officials, which have led to requests by local farmers for compensation. "We're taking all the required procedures to protect ourselves, using masks, gloves and special clothes when culling birds," said Avan Awaz, a senior official in northern Iraq's prevention programme. Additional supplies were sent by the US government to aid prevention programmes and are expected to reach the north by the end of the week, Awaz added. A team from the WHO is also analysing samples to investigate the possibility of a virus mutation, which could lead to human-to-human transmission of the disease. Direct contact with infected poultry, or objects contaminated by their faeces, is presently considered the primary route of human infection, according to the WHO. To date, most human cases have occurred in rural areas where many households keep poultry. -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [EMAIL PROTECTED] -------------------------- Brooks Isoldi, editor [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.intellnet.org Post message: osint@yahoogroups.com Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. OSINT, as a part of The Intelligence Network, is making it available without profit to OSINT YahooGroups members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of intelligence and law enforcement organizations, their activities, methods, techniques, human rights, civil liberties, social justice and other intelligence related issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. We believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osint/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
