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WHO: Bird Flu Alert Level for Indonesia May Increase
I don't know if this is a new statement or just the old one in a different form
WHO: Bird Flu Alert Level for Indonesia May Increase
By Alan Sipress
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...?nav=rss_world
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, May 24, 2006; 11:57 AM
JAKARTA, Indonesia, May 24 -- The World Health Organization may soon convene an expert panel to decide whether an unprecedented human outbreak of bird flu in Indonesia requires the world to go on higher alert for a possible pandemic, health officials said Wednesday.
If the global alert status were increased, it could entail the deployment of international stockpiles of anti-viral drugs to Indonesia and heightened monitoring of travel from the country to contain the outbreak.
WHO's internal discussions over the alert level come after Indonesian health authorities this week confirmed that the virus had killed at least six members from a single extended family on Sumatra island, including the death Monday of a 32-year-old man. A seventh family member also died from what investigators suspect was bird flu but she was buried before samples could be taken. Another relative is hospitalized with a confirmed case but is recovering.
Maria Cheng, a WHO spokeswoman in Geneva, said the outbreak in the North Sumatran village of Kubu Sembilang, was not only the largest bird flu cluster in the world but also the first in which investigators believe the virus was passed from one person to another and then to third.
I Nyoman Kandun, Indonesia's director for disease control, said earlier this week that the evidence from Sumatra was "suggestive of a third generation" of infection because of the long intervals between the earliest, middle and most recent cases. The timing of the infections makes it unlikely that the family members all contracted bird flu from the same source, for instance, sick chickens.
But while the outbreak is exceptional, international and Indonesian health officials in Jakarta stressed that the virus appears unchanged. Laboratory analysis of virus samples shows that it has not mutated or otherwise developed into a form more easily passed among people.
Meanwhile, top international health investigators dispatched to Sumatra have not uncovered any sign that the disease has spread beyond the one extended family, indicating that broader transmission of bird flu remains difficult. Several top epidemiologists, including two from WHO's global headquarters in Geneva and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, remain on the scene, tracking people who were in contact with the most recent victim and checking for illness.
Any decision to convene the expert panel, Cheng said, "depends on what we see in Indonesia. Our investigation is still incomplete." Moreover, she said, "Convening the panel does not necessarily mean we're going to go up an alert level."
WHO: Bird Flu Alert Level for Indonesia May Increase
By Alan Sipress
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...?nav=rss_world
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, May 24, 2006; 11:57 AM
JAKARTA, Indonesia, May 24 -- The World Health Organization may soon convene an expert panel to decide whether an unprecedented human outbreak of bird flu in Indonesia requires the world to go on higher alert for a possible pandemic, health officials said Wednesday.
If the global alert status were increased, it could entail the deployment of international stockpiles of anti-viral drugs to Indonesia and heightened monitoring of travel from the country to contain the outbreak.
WHO's internal discussions over the alert level come after Indonesian health authorities this week confirmed that the virus had killed at least six members from a single extended family on Sumatra island, including the death Monday of a 32-year-old man. A seventh family member also died from what investigators suspect was bird flu but she was buried before samples could be taken. Another relative is hospitalized with a confirmed case but is recovering.
Maria Cheng, a WHO spokeswoman in Geneva, said the outbreak in the North Sumatran village of Kubu Sembilang, was not only the largest bird flu cluster in the world but also the first in which investigators believe the virus was passed from one person to another and then to third.
I Nyoman Kandun, Indonesia's director for disease control, said earlier this week that the evidence from Sumatra was "suggestive of a third generation" of infection because of the long intervals between the earliest, middle and most recent cases. The timing of the infections makes it unlikely that the family members all contracted bird flu from the same source, for instance, sick chickens.
But while the outbreak is exceptional, international and Indonesian health officials in Jakarta stressed that the virus appears unchanged. Laboratory analysis of virus samples shows that it has not mutated or otherwise developed into a form more easily passed among people.
Meanwhile, top international health investigators dispatched to Sumatra have not uncovered any sign that the disease has spread beyond the one extended family, indicating that broader transmission of bird flu remains difficult. Several top epidemiologists, including two from WHO's global headquarters in Geneva and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, remain on the scene, tracking people who were in contact with the most recent victim and checking for illness.
Any decision to convene the expert panel, Cheng said, "depends on what we see in Indonesia. Our investigation is still incomplete." Moreover, she said, "Convening the panel does not necessarily mean we're going to go up an alert level."
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