Indonesian Human Bird Flu Toll Rises To 45

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Main Category: Bird Flu / Avian Flu
Article Date: 18 Aug 2006 - 14:00 PDT

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Indonesian authorities have confirmed that a 35-year old woman, and a 9-year-old girl, both died of H5N1 bird flu infection. This brings the total number of human deaths from bird flu in the country to 45, the highest in the world.

Both victims were from the West Java village of Cikelet. Officials deny there is a cluster of infections in the village area.

Earlier this month a 17-year old boy Cikelet became infected (tested positive) with bird flu, but refused to go to hospital and stayed at home - he is being monitored at home by health care professionals. So far, the rest of his family and close friends are free of symptoms.

Another man in Cikelet died this month of what was suspected bird flu, but authorities failed to collect samples.

After house-to-house checks were carried out at Cikelet two girls, 5 and 6 years of age, were found to have bird flu like symptoms and have been hospitalized.

Officials at Cikelet say extensive checking has produced no evidence of human-to-human transmission.

Clikelet consists of a number of hamlets. All the cases come from different hamlets. Officials say a cluster would have to come from the same house, or street. A mass cull of domestic birds is being carried out in Clikelet.

Indonesia has a population of nearly 300 million people. It consists of thousands of islands. Back yard poultry is common and a vital source of food for much of the population. Bird flu is endemic in much of the country. Authorities have not carried out a nationwide cull of backyard and farmed birds because they say it would be too expensive and virtually impossible to carry out.

Scientists fear H5N1 may mutate one day and become easily human transmissible. If more birds in a country have bird flu, more people will catch it. If more people have bird flu, the likelihood of a mutation is greater. The bird flu virus could mutate by infecting someone who has normal human flu. The bird flu virus could exchange genetic information with the human flu virus and pick up its ability to spread easily from human to human - it would mutate. The result could be a human flu pandemic.

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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