H5N1 Human to Human?
Two Avian-Flu Deaths in Indonesia Not Linked to Birds
Two Indonesian women who died from avian influenza earlier this month had no known contact with flu-infected birds, said a doctor at a hospital that treated one of the patients.
``It remains unclear how the two people contracted the disease,'' said Ilham Patu, 47, a medical officer with Sulianti Saroso, one of two hospitals in Jakarta designated to treat bird-flu cases.
A government investigation found no fowl or other birds were infected with the bird-flu virus near their homes, Patu said in an interview today.
Human transmission of H5N1 is ``not proven and not disproved''
Two Avian-Flu Deaths in Indonesia Not Linked to Birds
by Soraya Permatasari
Two Indonesian women who died from avian influenza earlier this month had no known contact with flu-infected birds, said a doctor at a hospital that treated one of the patients.
``It remains unclear how the two people contracted the disease,'' said Ilham Patu, 47, a medical officer with Sulianti Saroso, one of two hospitals in Jakarta designated to treat bird-flu cases.
A government investigation found no fowl or other birds were infected with the bird-flu virus near their homes, Patu said in an interview today.
The H5N1 virus has infected at least 130 people and killed 67 since December 2003 in Vietnam, China, Cambodia, Indonesia and Thailand, the World Health Organization said yesterday. The deaths, and new poultry infections in Vietnam and China this week, heighten concern the virus may mutate into a strain more easily passed between humans, leading to a pandemic that may kill millions.
The World Health Organization laboratory in Hong Kong confirmed on Nov. 16 the two Indonesian women died of the H5N1 virus, taking the number of confirmed cases in Indonesia to 11.
In about 80 percent of human cases, the infection was probably caused by direct contact with sick or dying birds, Georg Petersen, WHO's representative in Jakarta, said in a Nov. 14 interview.
``Then we are left with a group of people where we don't know exactly how they got infected,'' Petersen said. In cases where more than one person in a family became infected, authorities may ``know the source of one person, but not the others,'' he said.
Human-to-human transmission of the H5N1 avian flu virus is ``not proven and not disproved,'' Petersen said. ``There is only one case published from Thailand'' where human-to-human transmission is implicated, he said.
In Indonesia, two teenagers who had developed symptoms are undergoing tests for the virus. Neither had been exposed to H5N1-infected chickens at their homes, Patu said.
Four people in Indonesia confirmed to have contracted the H5N1 strain have survived, Sari Setiogi, a World Health Organization spokeswoman in Jakarta, said yesterday. Bloomberg
This is so freaky.
Unlike global warming hysteria, there are NO scientists/doctors who come out and debunk this problem. The most optimistic point they can make is that it's not likely to happen this year. Ugh.
Posted by: Phoenix | 11/18/2005 at 08:06 AM