Indonesian man dies of bird flu: health ministry
Pastor Dale Morgan
Indonesian man dies of bird flu: health ministry*
Reuters
Friday, March 16, 2007; 8:24 AM
JAKARTA (Reuters) - A 32-year-old Indonesian man has died of bird flu,
bringing the death toll in the country from the virus to 65, a health
ministry official said on Friday.
The man died at a hospital in the capital Jakarta on Thursday morning,
Ahmad Prihatna, an epidemiologist at the health ministry's bird flu
information center said by telephone.
The man, from east Jakarta, kept a pet bird in his house, the official
added.
"But it has not been determined whether the bird was infected with bird
flu," he said.
The man was admitted to Persahabatan hospital, one of Jakarta's two bird
flu treatment centers, on Wednesday after being treated at another
hospital in the eastern part of Jakarta.
Indonesia, which has millions of backyard fowl, has the world's highest
death toll from the H5N1 bird flu virus.
Bird flu is endemic in fowl in many of the 33 provinces in Indonesia and
there was a sudden increase in the number of human deaths from the virus
early this year after a brief lull.
The country has tried to intensify efforts to control the disease by
banning backyard fowl in Jakarta and surrounding provinces, and
increasing culling.
Although H5N1 avian flu mainly affects birds, the big concern is that it
could mutate into a disease that easily passes between people,
triggering a global pandemic.
In a controversial move, Jakarta declared last month it had stopped
sharing H5N1 samples with the World Health Organization, saying it would
only share them with parties who agreed not to use them for commercial
reasons.
The two sides then struck a deal on February 16 to resume sharing
samples, but under a new framework to give developing nations access to
vaccines.
Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari said on Wednesday Indonesia would
only resume sharing samples after a global mechanism on virus sharing
was in place.
The sharing mechanism is expected to be discussed at a meeting of health
ministers from the Asia-Pacific region and select countries on March
27-28 in Jakarta, but the new mechanism would still need to be discussed
at a WHO advisory board meeting in May.
Indonesia has said it had restricted sharing samples with foreign
laboratories because it is unfair for foreign drug firms to use the
samples, design vaccines, patent them and sell the product back to the
country.
But sharing of virus samples is crucial as it allows experts to study
their make-up and map the evolution and geographical spread of any
particular strain. Samples are also used to make vaccines.