Mild bird flu found in Wales spreads to humans

LONDON, May 28 (Reuters) Pupils and staff at a school in Wales are being offered anti-flu drugs after being in contact with a child suspected of contracting bird flu in an outbreak of a mild strain of the virus, health authorities said today.

Teachers and children at the school, which is close to a farm in Corwen, North Wales, where the H7N2 strain of bird flu was discovered last week, were being treated with antiviral medication as a precaution, the National Public Health Service (NPHS) said in a statement.

A total of 12 people have been identified as suffering from the flu, reporting ''symptoms of a flu like illness or conjunctivitis'' it said, but stressed no one was seriously ill.

It identified 142 people who may have had contact with the avian flu and said it could not rule out person-to-person contact.

''Person-to-person spread would be very unusual but limited spread of this type has been seen elsewhere in the past in some cases of bird flu,'' said Dr Marion Lyons of the NPHS.

''As a precautionary measure the NPHS is continuing to offer people who have had contact with individuals with this illness antiviral medication to minimise the risk of spread. '' Authorities confirmed an outbreak of bird flu last Thursday among chickens at a farm in North Wales.

NOT H5N1 But it was the low pathogenic H7N2 strain of bird flu, not the H5N1 strain, which is potentially deadly to humans and has caused scares elsewhere in the past.

Lyons said that investigations into the H7N2 strain had shown that when it spreads from person to person, the illness become milder.

But she added: ''Experience of this particular bird flu virus in humans is limited so we are actively managing the public health response.'' Britain has been on the watch for bird disease after Europe's biggest turkey producer Bernard Matthews was forced to destroy 160,000 turkeys because of an outbreak of the H5N1 strain of bird flu in England earlier this year.

The World Health Organisation says 186 people have died of bird flu since the H5N1 virus resurfaced in Southeast Asia in 2003. The virus has since spread throughout much of Asia, parts of Europe, the West Asia and Africa.

The presence of an H7 virus in poultry is treated seriously by animal health officials because scientists believe that, when allowed to circulate in poultry populations, a low pathogenic virus can mutate into the highly pathogenic form.

REUTERS CS SBA BST0024