official WHO bird flu case definitions

Here's the expert medical guidelines for diagnosing avian influenza. Here's hoping that this gets out to every doctor and nurse in every bush clinic in the Eastern Hemisphere. Too many possible bird flu cases are never tested, even when they're in children who're siblings of known bird flu victims!

One thing I spotted that makes me wonder -- they mention looking for respiratory problems and high fever, which makes sense -- but ignore possible encephalitis cases. That could be caused by an H5N1 infection.

Also of concern is that the guidelines include close contact with either a sick person or chickens. If H5N1 does mutate into a highly contagious form, it could quickly spread to people who don't know they have had contact with people with bird flu.

That is, just as with any influenza, you can catch avian bird flu from shaking hands with someone who is also infected but doesn't even know or show it themselves, because they're still in asymptomatic.

So a doctor going strictly by these guidelines would not suspect you had bird flu, not test you for it, and just think you had ordinary seasonal flu or something else -- and let you go spread it to other people.

WHO avian influenza case definitions and guidelines


How you can protect yourself from bird flu related pneumonia



WHO Bird Flu Case Definitions
WHO Bird Flu Case Definitions