Johannes Ginting, the only remaining member of an Indonesian family decimated by bird flu deaths, lies in a Medan hospital. Photograph: Binsar Bakkara/AP
A man in a mask is back on the Times' front page today along with a warning - Bird flu: a new threat. The paper is among many to report on fears about a cluster of bird flu deaths in the same Indonesian family.
The World Health Organisation said yesterday it was "concerned" about the deaths of seven family members and described it as the "most significant development" since the latest outbreak of the disease started in 2003. It said it "cannot rule out the possibility" that the virus had passed between humans.
The WHO believes a 37-year-old mother caught the disease last month. Some family members spent a night in a room with her when she was coughing and that is how investigators suspect the virus was passed on. A failure to find any sick animals has left the WHO stumped as to how the family became infected. It has also yet to find any evidence to suggest the disease has spread outside the family.
The Times report has a picture of the only surviving member of the family receiving treatment from men in masks (one of whom is also wearing what appears to be skiing goggles). "For Mr Ginting it is a personal tragedy. For the world, it raises the alarming prospect that the H5N1 virus may be passed from one human being to another," the papers says.
But does it? The Times, in common with others, reports that limited human to human transmission is thought to have happened before - in Thailand - without it leading to a pandemic. It also reports that analysed specimens have not shown any significant genetic mutation. The WHO says its laboratories in Hong Kong and the US have carried out full genetic sequencing on two viruses isolated from cases in the cluster and that there was no genetic reassortment or significant mutation.
That, according to Prof Hugh Pennington of Aberdeen University, is reassuring. Several mutations would be required before H5N1 became readily transmissible between people.
"The comforting factor is that the genetic sequences are not in any way different from what we have seen before. The real worry would be if they had come up with a new mutation or evidence there had been genetic swapping with a human or pig," he told Guardian Unlimited yesterday.
"At the end of the day that is what the fear is. Clearly if you have a mutating virus, that is the nightmare scenario. If they have sequenced this and it is the same as seen before it is not a major development. In that sense it is not a fundamental change."
