Indonesia Confirms 53rd Human Bird Flu Death

Featured Article
Main Category: Bird Flu / Avian Flu
Article Date: 15 Oct 2006 - 8:00 PDT

email to a friend   printer friendly   opinions  

An 11-year-old boy died yesterday of H5N1 bird flu infection, say officials from Indonesia's Ministry of Health. The total number of people infected with bird flu in the country has now reached 71, of which 53 have died.

The boy was from south Jakarta. Authorities say he had had contact with infected birds. He became ill earlier on during the week, was taken to hospital after bird flu like symptoms were identified last Thursday, and died Saturday evening.

Indonesia, the world's fourth most populous country, consists of more than 18,000 islands spread over a large area. Backyard poultry is an essential source of food. Despite the continuous rise in the death toll, Indonesian authorities are reluctant to carry out mass culling of birds - they say it would be extremely expensive and a logistical nightmare.

Scientists fear that bird flu will eventually mutate and become easily human transmissible - spread easily from one infected person to another. If this happens, the world could face a serious flu pandemic, similar to the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 which killed about 50 million people.

One of the most likely ways the H5N1 avian influenza virus strain could mutate would be by infecting a person who was sick with a the normal human flu virus. The H5N1 virus could then exchange genetic information with the normal human flu virus and acquire its ability to spread easily from human to human.

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

• Additional
• References
• Citations