# 1690
It is often difficult to know how much credence to give newspaper reports such as this.
The opening paragraph, where the reporter states `the government on Monday suddenly issued an alert on the spread of bird flu among humans' certainly sounds ominous enough, but whether this reflects some change of the situation there, or simply an abundance of caution, is impossible to tell right now.
Requiring 5 days of fever and prior exposure to dead chickens before running tests isn't much of a diagnostic screen, however.
This from the Times of India.
Bird flu over, alert for human infection
20 Feb 2008, 0240 hrs IST,
KOLKATA: A week after lifting the ban on the sale of poultry products, the state government on Monday suddenly issued an alert on the spread of bird flu among human beings.
The health department has asked health officials to keep a watch on possible human contraction of the H5N1 virus. "We will have to be alert to prevent any such cases for the next three months," an official said after attending a high-level meeting to assess the threat.
Health officials are extremely worried that cullers and civilians who helped out in the culling may have escaped the rigorous quarantine process. The condition of culling team members needs to be monitored very closely, doctors from all flu-hit districts suggested.
"All health officials have been instructed that if anyone comes to government healthcare centres with fever running for more than five days after having come in contact with a dead chicken, he/she should be put through all pathological tests for avian flu," said Basab Mukherjee, a KMC executive health officer in charge of the Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP) project in the city.
Mukherjee said the civic authorities would remain in close contact with all government hospitals and KMC health clinics for the next three months, as instructed by the state health department.
Though an alert has been sounded, the menu for the high level meeting, among other items, was egg curry. "Perhaps, it was an attempt to bring back confidence among doctors in the post flu period," said an official who attended the meeting.
