As against differential cytokine levels and viral load observed in a male and pregnant female fatal H5N1 case [21] , except for higher down-regulation of IL1B/IL2, the pregnant woman (S3) in our series was similar to others. It was intriguing to note that despite attempts of mounting immune response similar to mildrecovered patients, the patient S7 did succumb to the disease. It is important to recognize that the current study examines virus-host interactions throughout the course of severe disease, limitation of the study being absence of similar data from mild cases.