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WITNESS - TREADING WARILY ON THE BIRD FLU BEAT
By Tan Ee Lyn, Health Correspondent (The Star)
June 29, 2006
Jakarta (Reuters) - Walking through a squatter village just behind a stretch of gleaming office buildings in the heart of Jakarta, I steer clear of a handful of backyard chickens that strut around me.
Bird flu has killed almost 40 people in Indonesia. While no one has been infected in the small district of Karet Tengsin and there have not been any outbreaks of the disease in poultry in this area of the Indonesian capital, one cannot be too careful.
The World Health Organisation believes limited human-to-human transmission of the virus probably occurred in an Indonesian family in Sumatra in which seven relatives died in May.
Last week the world body confirmed that genetic analyses of samples showed that one family member, an ailing 10-year-old boy, infected his father. Both have since died.
A virus isn't something you can see and you would not know if you brought it back home or back to your office.
Neither can you underestimate it. When a virus infects and kills a person, it is akin to a parasitic tick trying to take down Mount Everest and succeeding.
This analogy comes into my mind with full force whenever I approach such stories about a potential epidemic. They inspire not so much fear as a quiet respect.
A very human story
Unlike many city dwellers who can choose not to be exposed to live poultry -- the main carrier of the H5N1 virus -- for many people in developing nations it is a luxury they cannot afford.
Suhadi, 71, and his wife have been rearing chickens outside their shack in Karet Tengsin since the 1960s. They have no fear of letting their 14 grandchildren play with chickens and ducks.
During family get-togethers, they would slaughter their own chickens, but when they needed the cash they would sell the birds. An adult male fetches about 25,000 rupiah (U.S. $2.65) while a hen brings up to 35,000 rupiah. An egg is 10,000 rupiah.
The family have never vaccinated their chickens, preferring an age-old concoction of crushed onions and kerosene.
"We are not afraid, we have traditional medicine," said Suhadi, who added that it was not difficult to persuade his chickens to consume the fiery traditional recipe.
"We don't feed them all morning, and they will just eat the medicine."
Running for my life
During SARS in 2003, as it is with bird flu now, we were under orders from our editors not to go into hospitals and areas where there were outbreaks of the respiratory disease, which killed close to 800 people.
However, there were a few occasions when news conferences or interviews would take place in what were supposed to be "safe wings" of hospitals taking care of SARS patients in Hong Kong, where I am based.
Coming away from the hospital, we would dispose of our surgical masks and gasp gratefully for air.
From then on, I would count the days and stay well away from social functions until the incubation period of seven to 10 days for the SARS virus was safely over.
John Tam, a leading Hong Kong microbiologist, remarked in the initial days of the epidemic on how quickly a person would deteriorate from SARS.
He did not think there would be SARS cases in Hong Kong that the government did not eventually know about because no one could cope with such severe suffering at home and would want, and need, to be admitted to hospital quickly.
Within a matter of days, the entire respiratory system of a SARS victim could fail.
"You can't have the virus and be walking around," he said.
Throughout the SARS epidemic, those words were motivation enough for me to spend hours running, several nights a week -- partly to work off the stress, and partly to prove to myself by the end of each workout that I was still uncontaminated.
Source: http://thestaronline.com/news/story....c=Worldupdates
By Tan Ee Lyn, Health Correspondent (The Star)
June 29, 2006
Jakarta (Reuters) - Walking through a squatter village just behind a stretch of gleaming office buildings in the heart of Jakarta, I steer clear of a handful of backyard chickens that strut around me.
Bird flu has killed almost 40 people in Indonesia. While no one has been infected in the small district of Karet Tengsin and there have not been any outbreaks of the disease in poultry in this area of the Indonesian capital, one cannot be too careful.
The World Health Organisation believes limited human-to-human transmission of the virus probably occurred in an Indonesian family in Sumatra in which seven relatives died in May.
Last week the world body confirmed that genetic analyses of samples showed that one family member, an ailing 10-year-old boy, infected his father. Both have since died.
A virus isn't something you can see and you would not know if you brought it back home or back to your office.
Neither can you underestimate it. When a virus infects and kills a person, it is akin to a parasitic tick trying to take down Mount Everest and succeeding.
This analogy comes into my mind with full force whenever I approach such stories about a potential epidemic. They inspire not so much fear as a quiet respect.
A very human story
Unlike many city dwellers who can choose not to be exposed to live poultry -- the main carrier of the H5N1 virus -- for many people in developing nations it is a luxury they cannot afford.
Suhadi, 71, and his wife have been rearing chickens outside their shack in Karet Tengsin since the 1960s. They have no fear of letting their 14 grandchildren play with chickens and ducks.
During family get-togethers, they would slaughter their own chickens, but when they needed the cash they would sell the birds. An adult male fetches about 25,000 rupiah (U.S. $2.65) while a hen brings up to 35,000 rupiah. An egg is 10,000 rupiah.
The family have never vaccinated their chickens, preferring an age-old concoction of crushed onions and kerosene.
"We are not afraid, we have traditional medicine," said Suhadi, who added that it was not difficult to persuade his chickens to consume the fiery traditional recipe.
"We don't feed them all morning, and they will just eat the medicine."
Running for my life
During SARS in 2003, as it is with bird flu now, we were under orders from our editors not to go into hospitals and areas where there were outbreaks of the respiratory disease, which killed close to 800 people.
However, there were a few occasions when news conferences or interviews would take place in what were supposed to be "safe wings" of hospitals taking care of SARS patients in Hong Kong, where I am based.
Coming away from the hospital, we would dispose of our surgical masks and gasp gratefully for air.
From then on, I would count the days and stay well away from social functions until the incubation period of seven to 10 days for the SARS virus was safely over.
John Tam, a leading Hong Kong microbiologist, remarked in the initial days of the epidemic on how quickly a person would deteriorate from SARS.
He did not think there would be SARS cases in Hong Kong that the government did not eventually know about because no one could cope with such severe suffering at home and would want, and need, to be admitted to hospital quickly.
Within a matter of days, the entire respiratory system of a SARS victim could fail.
"You can't have the virus and be walking around," he said.
Throughout the SARS epidemic, those words were motivation enough for me to spend hours running, several nights a week -- partly to work off the stress, and partly to prove to myself by the end of each workout that I was still uncontaminated.
Source: http://thestaronline.com/news/story....c=Worldupdates