HANOI - The World Health Organisation (WHO) on Saturday called for full disclosure of all information on each human bird flu case to prevent a global pandemic.
Full information and investigation of each case is "critical" in preventing the feared pandemic, which some experts claim could cost millions of lives.
"Full information on new cases, including those that may be closely related in time and place, is critical to ongoing assessment of the pandemic risk posed by the H5N1 virus," the UN body said in an online statement.
Vietnam on Friday provided the WHO with its latest figures on human infections, which have become a regular event in the Southeast Asian country.
Health experts fear a pandemic if bird flu evolves to a form easily transmissible between humans, rather than from birds to humans.
The report "brings the total number of laboratory-confirmed cases in Vietnam, detected since mid-December 2004, to 24. Of these, 13 have been fatal," WHO said in an online statement.
"Rapid field investigation of each new case is essential to ensure timely detection of clusters of cases occurring in family members or health care workers," WHO said.
"Such cases can provide the first signal than the virus is altering its behaviour in human populations and thus alert authorities to the need to intervene quickly."
Earlier this week, two relatives of bird flu patients tested positive for the virus despite never falling ill. It was not clear whether they caught from their relatives or from infected poultry.
Since late 2003, WHO has registered a total of 69 cases, of which 46 were fatal: 33 in Vietnam, 12 in Thailand and one in Cambodia.
Human cases have occurred in three phases, from January through March 2004 (35 cases, 24 deaths), August to October 2004 (nine cases, eight deaths), and from December 2004 until now (25 cases, 14 deaths).
Thirty-five of Vietnam`s 64 provinces and cities have been hit by the virus this year. According to the Ministry of Agriculture, 22 out of the 35 provinces have reported no new outbreaks for at least 21 days.
These figures do not take into account seven cases tested negative in January in Vietnam and recently re-tested positive in a WHO reference lab in Tokyo.
03/12/2005 03:33 GMT