Papua New Guinea: Fear grips Wewak town

[Gert van der Hoek]

Wednesday 14-Nov-07

Fear grips Wewak town

RESIDENTS of Wewak town were gripped with uncontrollable fear yesterday following rumours of the first bird flu case reported at the Wewak General Hospital in East Sepik.

The National?s Wewak office was bombarded with phone calls and personal visits by concerned people expressing their fears of contracting the deadly flu.
This follows unconfirmed reports of a death, suspected to be the first bird flu case, at the hospital early yesterday morning.

Acting hospital chief executive officer Dr Jimmy Kambo confirmed the death of a child yesterday but said the cause of death was not from bird flu.

Dr Kambo said the boy was suffering from pneumococcal meningitis and not bird flu as alleged by health workers and the public in Wewak town.

He said the health workers were too quick to raise the alarm after the patient?s clinical presentation because the disease was contagious.

The hospital was temporarily closed yesterday to allow health workers to do a general wash down of the wards and hospital area before it was re-opened last night.

http://www.thenational.com.pg/111407/Nation 13.htm

 

[tropical]

Re: Papua New Guinea: Fear grips Wewak town

"it was re-opened last night"

If they re-opened it, maybe there are not an avian case.
But, looked at how the things are gone in Indo, where the hospitals seems to be all opened, who knows ...
Summing with a Chinese hospitals awareness, maybe something are spreading out there, even as not very infectious ?

 

[Vibrant62]

Re: Papua New Guinea: Fear grips Wewak town

It sounds as if they are ruling out the possibility that these patients could be suffering from AI on the grounds that the infection or disease is contagious

This is not helpful. If H5N1 should become easily transissible we do not wish to miss a containment opportunity, simply becuase the possiblity has been dismissed as it used to be hard to transmit! I hope that testing has been conducted. People do not generally panic for no reason, and PNG is an area with a high incidence of background disease and death (unfortuantely).

 

[tropical]

Re: Papua New Guinea: Fear grips Wewak town

Thank you Vibrant62!
I'm totaly agreed with you that:
"we do not wish to miss a containment opportunity, simply because the possiblity has been dismissed as it used to be hard to transmit! I hope that testing has been conducted.