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http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601085&sid=a3hfCjy66dgA&refer=europe
Bird Flu Kills 150th Person; May Have Infected Victim's Brain
By Karima Anjani and Aloysius Unditu
Oct. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Bird flu may have infected an Indonesian woman's brain before it killed her yesterday, marking the 150th fatality caused by the virus worldwide since late 2003.
The 67-year-old woman from Indonesia's West Java province tested positive for the H5N1 strain of avian influenza on Oct. 11, four days after she was hospitalized in the city of Bandung with flu-like symptoms. Her condition deteriorated when she developed encephalitis, or an acute inflammation of the brain, said Hadi Yusuf, one of her doctors at Hasan Sadikin Hospital.
``Our concern is that the condition was caused by a bird flu infection in her brain,'' Yusuf said over the telephone today.
Neurological symptoms occur rarely with human H5N1 cases, according to virologist Menno de Jong, whose team observed 18 patients in Vietnam. Doctors are studying the virus to improve treatments for the disease, which threatens to mutate into a contagious form that could kill millions of people.
The virus is known to have infected 255 people in 10 countries during the past three years, killing 59 percent of them. The latest fatality brings to 72 the number of people known to have died from H5N1 this year alone -- almost as many as the total number of fatalities recorded in the previous three years.
New infections provide more chances for the virus to mutate into a lethal pandemic form, such as the one in 1918 that killed as many as 50 million people. In most H5N1 cases, severe respiratory disease, including pneumonia, is the main symptom.
Diseases involving the central nervous system, including encephalitis, transverse myelitis and Guillain-Barre syndrome, have been associated with influenza in humans, according to Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine, 13th edition. The cause of the disease isn't established, the medical book said.
75% Fatality Rate
The woman from West Java was the second person to die of avian flu at the weekend in Indonesia, where three of every four reported cases of the virus have been fatal.
An 11-year-old boy from a southern suburb of the capital, Jakarta, had the H5N1 strain when he died on Oct. 14, Joko Suyono, an official at the health ministry's avian flu information center, said late yesterday.
Test results reported by a U.S. navy laboratory confirmed an initial diagnosis made by a local laboratory, he said. The boy may have picked up the H5N1 virus from infected fowl in his neighborhood, Suyono said.
The fatalities take to 54 the number of people reported to have died in Indonesia from H5N1 since July 2005. A least one avian-flu death has been reported every month since September last year as authorities struggle to control the virus in poultry.
Indonesia, the world's fourth-most-populous country, surpassed Vietnam in August as the country with the most H5N1 fatalities.
Indonesia has reported 71 H5N1 cases, giving it a case- fatality rate of 75 percent -- the highest after Cambodia, where all six of that country's known H5N1 patients died, giving it a case-fatality rate of 100 percent.
To contact the reporters on this story: Karima Anjani in Jakarta at kanjani@bloomberg.net ; Aloysius Unditu in Jakarta at aunditu@bloomberg.net .
Last Updated: October 16, 2006 02:37 EDT
Bird Flu Kills 150th Person; May Have Infected Victim's Brain
By Karima Anjani and Aloysius Unditu
Oct. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Bird flu may have infected an Indonesian woman's brain before it killed her yesterday, marking the 150th fatality caused by the virus worldwide since late 2003.
The 67-year-old woman from Indonesia's West Java province tested positive for the H5N1 strain of avian influenza on Oct. 11, four days after she was hospitalized in the city of Bandung with flu-like symptoms. Her condition deteriorated when she developed encephalitis, or an acute inflammation of the brain, said Hadi Yusuf, one of her doctors at Hasan Sadikin Hospital.
``Our concern is that the condition was caused by a bird flu infection in her brain,'' Yusuf said over the telephone today.
Neurological symptoms occur rarely with human H5N1 cases, according to virologist Menno de Jong, whose team observed 18 patients in Vietnam. Doctors are studying the virus to improve treatments for the disease, which threatens to mutate into a contagious form that could kill millions of people.
The virus is known to have infected 255 people in 10 countries during the past three years, killing 59 percent of them. The latest fatality brings to 72 the number of people known to have died from H5N1 this year alone -- almost as many as the total number of fatalities recorded in the previous three years.
New infections provide more chances for the virus to mutate into a lethal pandemic form, such as the one in 1918 that killed as many as 50 million people. In most H5N1 cases, severe respiratory disease, including pneumonia, is the main symptom.
Diseases involving the central nervous system, including encephalitis, transverse myelitis and Guillain-Barre syndrome, have been associated with influenza in humans, according to Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine, 13th edition. The cause of the disease isn't established, the medical book said.
75% Fatality Rate
The woman from West Java was the second person to die of avian flu at the weekend in Indonesia, where three of every four reported cases of the virus have been fatal.
An 11-year-old boy from a southern suburb of the capital, Jakarta, had the H5N1 strain when he died on Oct. 14, Joko Suyono, an official at the health ministry's avian flu information center, said late yesterday.
Test results reported by a U.S. navy laboratory confirmed an initial diagnosis made by a local laboratory, he said. The boy may have picked up the H5N1 virus from infected fowl in his neighborhood, Suyono said.
The fatalities take to 54 the number of people reported to have died in Indonesia from H5N1 since July 2005. A least one avian-flu death has been reported every month since September last year as authorities struggle to control the virus in poultry.
Indonesia, the world's fourth-most-populous country, surpassed Vietnam in August as the country with the most H5N1 fatalities.
Indonesia has reported 71 H5N1 cases, giving it a case- fatality rate of 75 percent -- the highest after Cambodia, where all six of that country's known H5N1 patients died, giving it a case-fatality rate of 100 percent.
To contact the reporters on this story: Karima Anjani in Jakarta at kanjani@bloomberg.net ; Aloysius Unditu in Jakarta at aunditu@bloomberg.net .
Last Updated: October 16, 2006 02:37 EDT