June 23, 2006
The infection of eight members of an Indonesian family with bird flu at first alarmed international health officials, but now those officials are breathing a little easier.
Experts say that while the family members most likely spread the disease among one another, it may not increase the possibility of a human pandemic.
Scientists with the World Health Organization say it is possible that the H5N1 virus even underwent a slight mutation as it spread, but the mutation has not led to additional human-to-human transmission.
It has been human-to-human transmission that scientists have feared most, because the H5N1 virus is particularly lethal. More than half the humans who have contracted the disease since 1993 have died, and of the eight Indonesian family members who got the virus, seven are now dead.
But since then, no one else in Indonesia has gotten sick. WHO officials say when the father of the family died from the disease, the disease appeared to die with him.
Even so, scientists said the first known human-to-human transmission of the virus is significant, and should be more closely studied.
