April 30, 2006	Sunday	Rabi-us-Sani 1, 1427

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PESHAWAR, April 29: The World Health Organisation (WHO) has said that result of the blood samples and other tests of a suspected bird flu patient at the Khyber Teaching Hospital will be made available on Monday.

Talking to Dawn on Saturday, officials said that the patient’s condition had improved.

“The WHO’s officials have collected blood samples and nasal and throat swabs from the patient. Results of these investigation would take between 48 to 72 hours,” said a doctor, who is treating the patient.

He said as they had no idea about the management of the suspected cases of bird flu, they sent a request to the WHO. He said that a 13-year-old boy, Umar Said was admitted to medical ward on early Wednesday and was shifted to isolation room declared as “Red Zone”, because of suspicion of bird flu.

He said that the patient had been put on Tami flu drugs due to which his condition was improving. His temperature has come down, he said, claiming that the patient was responding to the medication.

An official of the WHO told Dawn that the samples had been sent to the National Institute of Health, Islamabad for analysis and determining the presence of H5N1 strain of virus. The health department has also requested the WHO to provide training to the health professionals regarding the management protocol required for bird flu.

The WHO has already imparted training to 20 health workers at the city’s three teaching hospitals.

A senior physician at the hospital, told this correspondent that initially when the H5N1 strain of avian influenza was reported from the poultry farms in Abbottabad and Charsadda, some eight poultry workers had been admitted to a local hospital in Charsadda. Later, they were discharged, he said, adding that it is part of our duty to fully investigate such cases, because in case such patients were left undiagnosed, they can spread the infection to more people.