Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Have had continual trickling in of cases of human infections with H5N1 with most recent count of 218 cases and 124 deaths. Fifty countries now have birds infected and 10 have birds and humans infected. Of note that about 1-2 weeks ago it became apparent that there was a family cluster of 7 cases in Sumatra, Indonesia. Recent evidence strongly indicates that this was human-to-human spread similar to the small cluster in Thailand in 2004 where 11 year old girl infected her mother and aunt who nursed her in the hospital before she died. Similar situation in Sumatra where father nursed 10 year son and others in family slept in small room while one or 2 people were coughing all night. Bottom line was a media blitz. I was asked by HHS and White House to go to “Pebble Beach” on the White House grounds and do wall-to-wall interviews to allay fears. Fact is that the cluster looks like it is dead-ending. I did interviews with NBC Evening News, CBS Evening News ABC World News tonight, Nightline, CNN Wolf Blitzer Situation Room, WTOP radio, MSNBC TV, etc. Big time exposure. HHS was very pleased with how I handled this volatile situation.