Maria Cheng
Maria Cheng
changing health indication people virus workers
I think really, (illness in) people like health-care workers and first responders would be our first indication that something is changing in the virus to make it more transmissible.
dangerous information suggest virus
We don't have any information to suggest that this virus is more pathogenic or dangerous than other viruses.
cats exposed fall means people role virus
But we don't know what this means for humans. We don't know if they would play a role in transmitting the disease. We don't know how much virus the cats would excrete, how much people would need to be exposed to before they would fall ill.
changed gone largely moment reason situation team virus whether
But at the moment we don't know enough about the situation to tell whether or not the virus has changed in some way. And that's largely the reason the team has gone in.
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.
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.
common draw either exposure human hypothesis information possible poultry sick
It is possible that they all had common exposure to sick poultry but it is also possible there may have been human to human transmission. We don't have enough information to draw a hypothesis either way.
close contacts detect failed further testing
testing and monitoring of more than 300 close contacts failed to detect any further cases.
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.
details keen kinds obviously samples sent tests
We don't have a lot of details as to what kinds of tests were done, but we are obviously keen to have the samples sent abroad.
information
We don't have enough information to make any kind of hypothesis.
cases information
We don't have any information about cases actually in the capital.
bird education measures network pass planning polio public tap
We are planning to tap into the polio network to pass on public education measures about bird flu.
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.