# 1368
Assurances this morning that there had been no new cases of bird flu in Pakistan in the last 10 days lasted but a few hours.
Three new victims have been admitted to hospitals today, according to this latest report, and the lead paragraph states there are concerns that "bird-flu pandemic could engulf the whole province".
Overstated, perhaps. But obviously officials are worried, and the finger pointing has begun in earnest.
Given that we've seen huge variations in the reporting coming out of Pakistan the past few days, I would caution my readers to take this, along with any other `breaking' news wire items, with a grain of salt.
The situation there is muddied and confused. The story is coming out in drips and drabs, and inaccuracies are certainly possible.
Note: This article doesn't give us a running total of patients. It sounds as if these cases are on top of the 8 (or 9) previously discussed. But that is by no means assured.
A hat tip to Treyfish on Flutrackers for this report. The bolding is mine, the report from The International News.
Sunday, December 16, 2007, Zill-Haj 5, 1428 A.H.
Three more bird flu victims detected in NWFP
NIH confirms two patients suffering from H5N1; Federal Health Ministry taking steps to control virus
By Mushtaq Yusufzai
PESHAWAR: The NWFP Health Department on Saturday feared that the bird-flu pandemic could engulf the whole province as three more victims of the virus were admitted to hospitals in Peshawar and Abbottabad.
“The virus can spread to the whole province if precautionary measures are not taken on war-footing by the federal government and the concerned international donors,” remarked NWFP Caretaker Health Minister Syed Kamal Shah.
Also, heirs of two young students and Pakistan’s first-ever bird flu victims held the authorities concerned responsible for their loss.
Official sources told ‘The News’ that three more patients suffering from bird-flu virus were brought to hospitals in the NWFP.
Two patients ñ a 10-year-old girl and a man ñ living in the vicinity of a poultry farm in Abbottabad were admitted to hospitals in Abbottabad district on Saturday.
Health Minister Kamal Shah said one of the patients was admitted to the Ayub Medical Complex (HMC) and another to a private health facility, Shahina Jamil Hospital.
Sources told this scribe that blood samples of both the patients were sent to the National Institute of Health (NIH), which confirmed the two patients were suffering from H5N1 virus, which is considered the most severe bird-flu virus.
Also, blood samples of the third patient who was admitted to Peshawar’s Khyber Teaching Hospital (KTH) were sent to NIH, which is supposed to release report within 24 hours.
Two young brothers ñ Muhammad Idrees and Muhammad Ilyas ñ had lost their lives in the KTH, mainly because of the negligence of the hospital administration as well as lack of coordination between the provincial and federal health departments.
Health Minister Kamal Shah said he did not want to hide the facts from the people and felt the situation could become critical if necessary measures were not taken in time by the federal government as well as by the international donor agencies.
“This is a totally new challenge, which we are completely ill-equipped and ill-planned to tackle,” explained the minister.
He said since it had been confirmed now that the two brothers died in Peshawar were the victims of bird-flu virus, the NIH officials still did not send their report to his ministry. He said if the NIH released its report positive, then they would send it to the Communicable Disease Centre (CDC) in Atlanta, America, for further verification. “For me, the lives of our people are more important than the poultry industry,” he remarked.
Senior officials of provincial health department said people in the poultry industry were powerful enough to manipulate the bosses of the NIH from releasing its report of the deadly disease that took precious lives and posed serious threat to many others.
The two patients admitted in Abbottabad were reportedly living in the vicinity of a poultry farm.
Similarly, the third patient in Peshawar belonging to the nearby Palosai town was serving as attendant of his wife in KTH when the two brothers were admitted there. Doctors in the KTH said the man was sleeping during the night near the isolation room where the two brothers were kept. He was suffering from severe pneumonia when brought to hospital and was shifted to an isolation room.
Dr Mukhtiar Zaman Afridi, who is a noted chest physician and the head of Pulmonology Department at KTH, has closely observed the five brothers hailing from Charsadda, two of whom later lost their lives due to lethal virus.
The doctors close to Dr Mukhtiar told The News that on the right time he had observed that the two young brothers were not common patients and suggested that there should be special care and treatment for them but as always his cry fell on deaf ears.
The KTH administration did nothing to save the lives of the two seriously- ill patients. “They did not even inform officials of the provincial health department or NIH to come and collect blood samples of the patients who were fighting between life and death,” said the doctors.
Doctors felt Dr Mukhtiar Zaman’s timely suspicion of the disease and referring the victims of bird-flu virus to isolation ward saved around 75 lives, including doctors and paramedical workers as well as patients admitted in his chest ward.
APP adds: The National Institute of Health in collaboration with the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock, the Health Department of NWFP, WHO and UNICEF are taking necessary action to control Avian Influenza outbreak in the NWFP.
The National Institute of Health has tested patients and contacts suspected for Avian Influenza in late October, 2007. Six cases were found positive for H5N1 Avian Influenza virus, five of them from Abbottabad and one from Mansehra district.
Five of them have fully recovered, one of the confirmed cases died in hospital while his brother who could not be tested has also died.
To avert the potential spread of this infection to humans, the Ministry of Health has implemented the control activities.
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