Maria Cheng
Maria Cheng
announced cases turkish
These are all cases that have already been announced (by Turkish authorities).
alert cases couple elevate global last needs pandemic phase risk
Right now these new cases in Turkey, they don't elevate the global risk assessment, so we're still in the same pandemic alert phase that we've been in for the last couple of years. But it's something that needs to be monitored very closely.
according case dismissed eastern office
According to our Eastern Mediterranean office, it's been dismissed as a case ... they got back to us that it was not avian influenza.
boy cases confirmed include south suspect three
There is one confirmed case, the girl, and three suspect cases under investigation who have died. They include her uncle, the boy in the south and another case.
cases gaps given human humans isolated points seeing serious situation surprised
We shouldn't be seeing human cases first, and this points to serious gaps in surveillance. But given the situation in Turkey, I don't think we'd be surprised to see isolated humans cases in surrounding areas.
cases determine exposure mode rapidly seen situation source whether
We'd like to see all these cases investigated rapidly so that we can determine what the mode of transmission was, what the source of exposure was, and whether or not there were any characteristics of the situation that are different from what we've seen in Asia.
cases contain identify might rapidly spread
If we are able to identify cases rapidly enough so that we could put in these measures, they might effectively contain the spread of a pandemic,
cases information
We don't have any information about cases actually in the capital.
beijing cases exposure history human identified informed office province seems somebody
Our office in Beijing was informed of this today. It is in a province that hasn't identified human cases before but it is somebody who seems to have a history of exposure to poultry.
birds certainly cluster easily humans numbers pieces seen sure terms together virus
I'm not sure we've seen a cluster like this in terms of numbers and certainly it's a concern. Is the virus being transmitted more easily from birds to humans, or even from humans to humans? We need to put all the pieces together before we can come to conclusions.
attempt good strengthen worldwide
Any attempt to strengthen the surveillance worldwide for H5N1 is a good plan.
far looks
So far it looks like the same pattern.
fatal laboratory samples
The laboratory in the U.K. said that they have detected H5N1 in samples from the two fatal cases.
birds concern contact humans infected mean obviously seen virus worldwide
We've never seen so many outbreaks of the same virus in so many different regions. Our concern obviously is that humans could potentially come into contact with birds infected with H5N1, which would mean populations worldwide are potentially at risk.