Avian Flu - What we need to know

Indonesian family infected with bird flu

A family of five was admitted to Abdul Moeloek hospital in Bandurlampung on Sunday, all suffering from suspected bird flu.

The family -- Abidi, the husband and his wife Sarmawati, both 52, and three of their six children, Septi, 12, Fitri, 8 and Putra, 5 -- are now being treated in an isolation room. The five have all demonstrated a high fever and a cough, symptoms of the deadly bird flu.

Sarmawati has been treated at the hospital since last Thursday. Her other three children had been diagnosed with bird flu earlier. Mohtar Rozi, 15, died March 31, and Betharia, 19, died April 4, while Bakhrudin, 26, is still being treated at the hospital.

Both Mohtar and Betharia died at home before they could be sent to the hospital. Their parents had limited funds and knew little about the virus.

Laboratory tests on drug samples taken from the patients confirmed Bakhrudin, Septi, Fitri and Putra were infected with the bird flu virus, while Abidi and Sarmawati were negative, according to data from the Lampung health office.

From the Jakarta Post, via H5N1.

Latest human cases

Indonesia reported two more cases on Monday, read the details at Recombinomics. For more on Indonesia try the Jakarta Post here and here, or this recent Bloomberg story.

Yesterday Egypt reported its 12th human case of bird flu, the BBC has some details.

Indonesia reports 24th bird flu death

An eight-year-old Indonesian girl who died last year has been confirmed by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as the nation's 24th bird flu fatality, a health ministry official said.

Runizar Rusin, the head of the ministry's bird flu command post, told AFP that samples taken from the girl were only recently sent to Hong Kong for testing by a WHO-affiliated laboratory.

"Following testing at the WHO laboratory in Hong Kong, the results were sent back to us yesterday and were positive," he said, adding that the results meant Indonesia now had 24 confirmed deaths.

Source.

Six new suspected cases in Asia

Three people were under observation in Cambodia today, suspected of having contacted bird flu:

The three -- one adult and two children -- are being treated for fever and respiratory problems at a hospital in the capital Phnom Penh, said Ly Sovann, head of the health ministry's department of infectious diseases.

The suspected cases come from a village neighbouring that of a three-year-old girl who died Tuesday after falling ill with the H5N1 strain of the virus.

Five other people who had contact with the suspected cases are also being tested, Ly Sovann said.

It is unknown how the three might have become infected with the deadly virus, Ly Sovann said.

Seven Cambodians thought to have caught bird flu after the girl died tested negative for the virus, Ly Sovann said earlier.

"All the seven suspected patients are negative ... all of them are better," he said.

AFP also reports two new suspected cases in Malysia:

A three-year old girl from northern Penang state and a 26-year-old man from neighbouring Perak state are in isolation while awaiting test results for the H5N1 virus, said the ministry's director for disease control, Ramlee Rahmat.

"They have been isolated pending further investigation. They are both stable," Ramlee told AFP. "The test results will come back in one or two days."

Finally, Indonesia reported today a one year old girl who died eariler this week tested positive for bird flu:

The girl, a resident of West Jakarta, died Thursday at Jakarta's Sulianti Saroso main state-run hospital for bird flu patients, said health ministry official Hariyadi Wibisono.

"The local tests for the girl came out positive. She had a history of contact with sick chickens near her house and suffered serious respiratory problems during hospitalisation," Wibisono told AFP.

Samples from the girl have been sent to a Hong Kong laboratory accredited by the World Health Organisation for confirmation, the official said.

If confirmed, the girl would be Indonesia's 23rd bird flu fatality. Results from local tests are usually accurate.

Indonesia confirms 22nd casualty

Bird flu has killed its 22nd human victim in Indonesia, a 12-year-old girl, according to tests by the World Health Organisation's Hong Kong laboratory, an Indonesian health ministry official said on Friday. "We have confirmation from the Hong Kong lab that Hanif, a 12-year-old girl from Boyolali in Central Java, died of bird flu. We now have 30 cases, with 22 of them dead," said Hariadi Wibisono, director-general of control of animal-borne disease at the health ministry.

Source. Earlier today a 3 year old boy was also confirmed to have died of bird flu.

Bird flu suspect dies in Indonesia

A 10-year-old boy suspected of having avian influenza died in the Central Java town of Surakarta on Saturday. The boy, a native of Boyolali regency, is reported to have contracted the disease through direct contact with affected chickens two weeks earlier.

The boy's hometown in Sanggrong village, Andong district, some 30 kilometers north of Surakarta city, is an area where avian influenza or bird flu is endemic. Thousands of chickens and birds reportedly have died there since the bird flu outbreak in 2004.

The boy was taken to Dr. Moewardi hospital for treatment Wednesday, the day when a 12-year-old girl who was suspected of having bird flu died at the same hospital. The girl, also a Boyolali native, died two days after her 10-year-old brother passed away after suffering from the same classic bird flu symptoms. None of the three have been confirmed as bird flu cases through laboratory tests.

From The Jakarta Post.

New suspected cases in China, Indonesia

A three-year-old boy from Indonesia's Central Java province has died of bird flu, a senior health official said on Saturday, citing the results of a local test.

If confirmed by a U.N.-recognized laboratory, the boy would be the country's 21st death from the H5N1 virus, which is now endemic in poultry in the world's fourth most populous nation.

Source.

A man who died in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong may have had the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu, the Hong Kong government said.

The territory's Department of Health received notification of the 32-year-old man's death from China's Ministry of Health and Guangdong province health officials on Friday, the government said in a statement.

The man, who lived in Guangzhou city -- just across the border from Hong Kong -- developed fever and pneumonia on February 22 and died on March 2, the statement, released late Friday, said.

From CNN.

Two suspected casualties in Indonesia

A health official in Jakarta said a 29-year-old woman who had a history of contact with poultry died Wednesday night and samples have been sent to a World Health Organization-sanctioned laboratory in Hong Kong to confirm the cause of her death.

That's according to Hariadi Wibisono, a senior official at the Indonesian health ministry.

Indonesia is also waiting on results from the Hong Kong lab on a 39-year-old man who died recently and for whom local tests indicated he had bird flu.

If both results are confirmed, the country's human toll from the disease would climb to 13, said Wibisono.

Source.

Indonesia sees more frequent human infections

Indonesia's human cases of avian influenza are occurring with increasing frequency, prompting the government to step up monitoring efforts aimed at slowing the spread of the virus among animals.

Humans are contracting the deadly H5N1 strain of the virus at a faster pace, causing more deaths, Agriculture Minister Anton Apriantono told reporters in Jakarta before attending a cabinet meeting on bird flu, without elaborating.

``We will step up preventive efforts, be more proactive,'' Apriantono said. ``We will do checking even on areas that haven't seen any cases of dead poultry. Information dissemination about bird flu will be stepped up.''

Indonesia has the second-highest number of bird flu cases among humans in the world. The H5N1 virus has killed at least 18 people of the 25 people it has infected in the Southeast Asian nation. Health authorities say they are concerned the virus will mutate into a form easily transmitted among humans, causing a deadly global pandemic. The country's suspected sixth cluster of human infections, in two adults and their two-year-old daughter, has heightened concerns.

The government plans to start searching Jakarta homes starting next week, Apriantono said. The government will cull diseased poultry in a 1 kilometer (0.6 mile) radius and vaccinate fowl within a 3 kilometer radius.

That is from Bloomberg. I wonder how much of this increase in reported cases is due to better testing and awareness, as opposed to higher incidence.

The latest human infections

Late on Friday China confirmed its eighth H5N1 casualty. The victim was a 20 year old woman from the Hunan province. She was a chicken farmer. (Source)

In perhaps the most worrisome news of the weekend the Saturday Wall Street Journal news tracker claims "Nigerian officials suspect the country may have its first human case of H5N1." Reuters has a similar story:

"There are a few suspected cases ... We're trying to locate them but our sources can't provide us with addresses for now," said Abdulsalam Nasidi, who is in charge of the response to bird flu as a threat to humans at the federal Health Ministry.

He said epidemiologists were searching for two people feared to have contracted bird flu in the northern state of Kaduna, close to Sambawa Farms where one of the poultry samples was found that tested positive for H5N1.

Samples have already been taken from people who are ill in the areas affected by bird flu. Should tests in Nigerian laboratories indicate the presence of bird flu, the samples would be sent abroad for further testing, Nasidi said.

Finally, on Sunday Indonesia confirmed earlier suspicions that two women who passed away earlier this week were infected with the H5N1 virus.