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Implicit Location : Singapore
No need for panic over bird flu , say experts
Human-to-human infection rare and mild, but good hygiene still important
The H5N1 virus may have claimed two lives in China and Indonesia but there is no cause for undue alarm, say leading infectious disease specialists.
Bird-to-human transmissions remain the predominant form, while the human-to-human type is not only rare but also causes infections that are very mild.
Professor Seto Wing-Hong, director of the World Health Organisation's Collaborating Centre for Infection Control in Hong Kong, said that during the 1997 avian flu outbreak, health workers there were required to report any contact made with patients.
Data showed that only five out of 965 medical staff who reported having such contact came down with the ailment.