Five Family Members Infected With Bird Flu In Indonesia

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Main Category: Bird Flu / Avian Flu
Article Date: 17 May 2006 - 8:00 PDT

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Indonesian authorities and the World Health Organization have confirmed that five members of the same family are infected with the H5N1 avian influenza virus strain - raising fears that perhaps it is transmitting more easily from human-to-human. How many of the family members got the infection from each other or from infected birds is not yet known. The family is from the North Sumatra province, near Medan.

Whenever there is a cluster of human infections, scientists immediately investigate whether H5N1 is mutating into a human transmissible form. Were this to happen, the virus would spread quickly and bring about a global flu pandemic. Depending on how the virus mutated, a pandemic could pose a serious threat to the lives of many humans around the world.

Four of the five infected Indonesian family members have died. There may have been more than five H5N1 infections in that single family, a further three samples are still being tested.

According to scientists in the area, checks on local animals, birds and manure have all tested negative for bird flu. It is crucial to find out how each of these infected people caught the virus. Even if they all got infected from animals - rather than from another human - it is still puzzling. It is unusual for so many people to become infected in one household. Humans do not get the infection from birds easily.

The World Health Organization says it is too early to say whether human-to-human infection has taken place.

A businesswoman from Surabaya, Indonesia, died of H5N1 infection last week. Authorities say she handled live pigs and pork meat shortly before becoming infected.

So far, 30 people have died of bird flu infection in Indonesia.

Written by: Christian Nordqvist
Editor: Medical News Today
Copyright: Medical News Today
Not to be reproduced without permission of Medical News Today

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