Posted by
Nancy Nurse on Tuesday, September 26, 2006 7:26:59 AM
More grief for Indonesia
Indonesian man sickened by the H5N1 bird flu virus, new family cluster fearedThe Associated Press
Published: September 26, 2006
JAKARTA,
Indonesia An Indonesian man hospitalized with symptoms of bird flu has
the disease, health officials confirmed Tuesday, pointing to a possible
new family cluster in the nation hardest hit by the virus.
The
older brother of the 20-year-old patient — who is being treated in the
city of Bandung — died Sunday with symptoms of the disease before
samples could be taken, said Fatimah Resmiati, a West Java health
official.
Their 15-year-old sister has a high fever and
respiratory problems and is also being treated as a suspected bird flu
case, officials at Hasan Sadikin hospital said.
Resmiati suggested that the siblings could represent a new family cluster of the disease.
Experts closely monitor such cases for signs that the virus may have mutated into a form more easily passed between humans.
The
H5N1 strain of bird flu has killed at least 146 people worldwide since
it started ravaging poultry stocks in Asia three years ago, hitting
Indonesia the hardest, according to the World Health Organization.
At
least 51 people have died across the sprawling archipelago, most of
them on the densely populated island of Java, and another 17 patients
have been sickened.
At present it is difficult for people to
catch — with most infections being linked to close contact with
infected birds or their droppings. But experts fear the virus could
mutate into a form that is more easily transmissible between humans.
Gunawan,
the cousin of the three family members believed to have been affected
in recent days, said the siblings had been in contact with chicken
carcasses, feeding them to their pet dog.
It was not immediately clear if the dead birds were infected with bird flu.