ISLAMABAD: The health ministry on Saturday confirmed that a man who died after culling infected birds at a poultry farm was the country’s first fatality from the bird flu virus. Five people were confirmed to have been infected with the H5N1 strain of avian influenza.
Ministry spokesman Mazhar Nisar said the confirmed victim, the brother who died, and two other brothers who were infected but survived all worked on the same cull of infected birds.
"We are not certain how (the brother) died because we could not conduct his testing," Nisar said.
Six people were confirmed to have been infected with the H5N1 strain of avian influenza, all of them in Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province. "Five of them have fully recovered. One of the confirmed cases died in hospital while his brother, who could not be tested, has also died," he said.
Hospital officials in the provincial capital of Peshawar told foreign news agency that the confirmed victim Muhammad Tariq died late last month, a few days before his brother, who was admitted with similar symptoms but was not tested.