RAWALPINDI, Dec 30: A team of the World Health Organisation (WHO), which travelled to Pakistan to participate with the national authorities in the ongoing investigations of several suspected cases of human H5N1 avian influenza infections and carried out preliminary risk assessment, has found no evidence of sustained cases of human H5N1 infections.

The team on its return to the WHO Headquarters in Geneva also concluded that all identified close contracts, including the other members of the affected family and involved health care workers, remained asymptomatic and had been removed from close medical observation.

The team observed that the Ministry of Health had taken timely steps to investigate and contain the human infection with H5N1 event, including case isolation, contact tracing and monitoring, detailed epidemiological investigations, increasing the availability of personal protective equipment, dedicating hospital facilities for any new suspected cases, and other infection control measures.

In addition, agricultural authorities, including the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock and the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), have been active technical partners for the effective control of this limited outbreak.

The WHO has confirmed the first case of human infection with H5N1 avian influenza in Pakistan. Laboratory tests conducted by the WHO H5 Reference Laboratory in Cairo, Egypt, and the WHO Collaborating Centre for Reference and Research on Influenza in London, United Kingdom, have confirmed the presence of avian influenza virus strain A (H5N1) in samples collected from one case in an affected family.

The H5N1 positive case was a 25-year-old male from areas of Mansehra and Abbottabad who developed febrile respiratory illness on November 21, was hospitalised on November 23, and died on November 28. Additional laboratory analysis, including gene sequencing, was going on.