Bangkok
Thailand announced a national health alert this week after officials confirmed the first likely person-to-person transmission of avian flu. A woman who died of the disease last week is believed to have contracted it from her daughter, who died just two weeks earlier. World health officials worry that the flu could mutate into a highly infectious strain, but Thai doctors said there was no evidence that this had happened yet. They said the human transmission occurred only after weeks of close face-to-face contact, as the woman was caring for her daughter. Human avian flu transmission was suspected last year in Hong Kong, but was impossible to prove because many victims had also been in contact with sick birds.
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