No evidence Indonesia bird flu spreading
JAKARTA, Indonesia - Investigators found no evidence that bird flu was spreading among humans in a remote part of central Indonesia where two people died from the virus and a third was sickened, local and international health workers said Tuesday.
Four other people died in the Cikelet region of West Java province before swab samples were taken to determine the cause, officials said, and test results were pending for five others with symptoms of the disease, including a 61-year-old man hospitalized early Tuesday.
Health workers said poultry in the poor region, accessible by motorcycle or on horseback, began dying in large numbers in July after villagers purchased chickens from outside the area and incorporated them into local flocks.
"As the population had no experience with this disease, high-risk behaviors commonly occurred during the disposal of carcasses or the preparation of sick or dead birds for consumption," WHO said in a statement.
"Though some of the undiagnosed deaths occurred in family members of confirmed cases, the investigation has found no evidence of human-to-human transmission and no evidence that the virus is spreading more easily from birds to humans," the statement added.
The H5N1 virus has killed at least 141 people worldwide since it began ravaging Asian poultry stocks in late 2003, 46 of them in Indonesia, the worst-affected country, according to WHO.
Most people have been infected after coming into contact with sick birds, but experts fear the virus could mutate into a form that spreads easily among humans, possibly sparking a pandemic.
Nyoman Kandun, a senior Indonesian health official, said that while there was no evidence of mutation in Cikelet, authorities were carrying out tests on everybody who had been in contact with victims.
All had come back negative so far, he said.
Some 2,400 residents in the area also were being given free doses of the bird flu medication Tamiflu, Kandun said, and an agricultural official said at least 2,500 chickens had been killed in effort to stamp out the disease.
The H5N1 virus is considered endemic in poultry in 29 of 33 provinces across the archipelago, said national bird flu coordinator Bayu Krisnamurthi.
"We are racing against the virus, especially as we approach the rainy season where, just like a common flu, the risk of catching it increases."
JAKARTA, Indonesia - Investigators found no evidence that bird flu was spreading among humans in a remote part of central Indonesia where two people died from the virus and a third was sickened, local and international health workers said Tuesday.
Four other people died in the Cikelet region of West Java province before swab samples were taken to determine the cause, officials said, and test results were pending for five others with symptoms of the disease, including a 61-year-old man hospitalized early Tuesday.
Health workers said poultry in the poor region, accessible by motorcycle or on horseback, began dying in large numbers in July after villagers purchased chickens from outside the area and incorporated them into local flocks.
"As the population had no experience with this disease, high-risk behaviors commonly occurred during the disposal of carcasses or the preparation of sick or dead birds for consumption," WHO said in a statement.
"Though some of the undiagnosed deaths occurred in family members of confirmed cases, the investigation has found no evidence of human-to-human transmission and no evidence that the virus is spreading more easily from birds to humans," the statement added.
The H5N1 virus has killed at least 141 people worldwide since it began ravaging Asian poultry stocks in late 2003, 46 of them in Indonesia, the worst-affected country, according to WHO.
Most people have been infected after coming into contact with sick birds, but experts fear the virus could mutate into a form that spreads easily among humans, possibly sparking a pandemic.
Nyoman Kandun, a senior Indonesian health official, said that while there was no evidence of mutation in Cikelet, authorities were carrying out tests on everybody who had been in contact with victims.
All had come back negative so far, he said.
Some 2,400 residents in the area also were being given free doses of the bird flu medication Tamiflu, Kandun said, and an agricultural official said at least 2,500 chickens had been killed in effort to stamp out the disease.
The H5N1 virus is considered endemic in poultry in 29 of 33 provinces across the archipelago, said national bird flu coordinator Bayu Krisnamurthi.
"We are racing against the virus, especially as we approach the rainy season where, just like a common flu, the risk of catching it increases."
