Latest Bird-Flu Case in Indonesia Suggests a New Family Cluster
Associated Press
September 29, 2006 10:58 a.m.
An Indonesian woman whose brother died of bird flu this month is also sick with virus, a senior Health Ministry official said Friday, confirming the country's latest family cluster of infections.
The 21-year-old is being treated in a hospital in Surabaya city in east Java province, said Nyoman Kandun, Indonesia's director-general of disease control and environmental health. Her 11-year-old brother died from the virus on Sept. 18.
"This is a family cluster," said Dr. Kandun, adding that the source of the infection had yet to be identified.
Most of Indonesia's 52 fatal cases have been linked to contact with infected chickens or their droppings. But the World Health Organization said the virus passed between humans in one large cluster of cases in a single family on Sumatra Island earlier this year.
Cases of suspected human-to-human transmission are watched very closely because they increase the chances of the virus mutating into a form that is easily passed between humans, and that could possibly trigger a global pandemic.
The H5N1 strain of bird flu has killed at least 148 people world-wide since it started ravaging poultry stocks in Asia three years ago, according to WHO.
Indonesia has been criticized for failing to aggressively attack the virus in poultry, either by mass slaughters or vaccination. It has said it lacks the resources to compensate farmers for slaughtered birds.
Associated Press
September 29, 2006 10:58 a.m.
An Indonesian woman whose brother died of bird flu this month is also sick with virus, a senior Health Ministry official said Friday, confirming the country's latest family cluster of infections.
The 21-year-old is being treated in a hospital in Surabaya city in east Java province, said Nyoman Kandun, Indonesia's director-general of disease control and environmental health. Her 11-year-old brother died from the virus on Sept. 18.
"This is a family cluster," said Dr. Kandun, adding that the source of the infection had yet to be identified.
Most of Indonesia's 52 fatal cases have been linked to contact with infected chickens or their droppings. But the World Health Organization said the virus passed between humans in one large cluster of cases in a single family on Sumatra Island earlier this year.
Cases of suspected human-to-human transmission are watched very closely because they increase the chances of the virus mutating into a form that is easily passed between humans, and that could possibly trigger a global pandemic.
The H5N1 strain of bird flu has killed at least 148 people world-wide since it started ravaging poultry stocks in Asia three years ago, according to WHO.
Indonesia has been criticized for failing to aggressively attack the virus in poultry, either by mass slaughters or vaccination. It has said it lacks the resources to compensate farmers for slaughtered birds.
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