KARACHI, Feb 27: Following reports about confirmed H5 strain of Avian influenza in chicken in the NWFP, the Sindh health department has once again alerted the health concerns throughout the province.

Talking to Dawn, Additional Health Secretary Dr Abdul Majid said that no case of bird flu was reported to the health department till Monday evening, but in the wake of possibility for outbreak of the deadly Avian influenza in the region, the district health officials had already been asked to take all precautionary measures.

Dr Majid, who is also the provincial focal person on matters related to bird flu, said that in line with a call for high alert from the federal government, doctors at government hospitals were urged to have close watch on patients with the history of pneumonia or common cold. If there is a patient suffering from influenza and also known for having any connection with poultry handling, he or she should be given extra attention, and nasal-swab of such patient be sent immediately for laboratory examination, he added.

He said that a training session for EDOs, bird flu surveillance officers and their coordinators would be held on March 1. “We have received some literature and guidelines in regard to bird flu from the federal government, which would be passed on to the related health personnel,” he mentioned.

Health department sources said that some health officials of the NWFP had also been contacted by Sindh officials so that adequate measures could be taken to check the human cases of avian influenza.

Talking about the avian influenza, experts said that outbreak of the disease among birds in India and Afghanistan had been reported and as such local authorities should keep a close watch on fatality among poultry population and appearance of severe respiratory illness in the exposed human population.

It was said that presence of H5 strain of Avian influenza was not transferable to humans, but it was the combination of H5 and N1 which had the potential of transmitting to humans.

Dr Afia Zafar, chairperson of infection control committee, said that bird flu was an infection caused by bird flu. These flu viruses occur naturally among birds. However, it is believed that most cases of bird flu infection in humans have resulted from contact with infected poultry or surfaces contaminated with excretions from infected birds, she added.

According to her studies, the spread of avian influenza viruses from one ill person to another has been reported very rarely, and transmission has not been observed to continue beyond one person. However, since all influenza viruses have the ability to change, scientists are concerned that H5N1 virus may acquire the ability to spread easily from one person to another leading to pandemic spread, she mentioned.