Indonesia girl dies of bird flu
Pastor Dale Morgan
*Indonesia girl dies of bird flu*
From correspondents in Jakarta
August 17, 2006 05:01pm
Article from: Reuters
A NINE-year-old Indonesian girl who died this week had bird flu
according to two local tests and the village where she lived is rife
with the disease, the Health Ministry said today.
The girl died on Tuesday in a hospital in West Java's Cikelet village
where there are many sick and dead chickens, said Runizar Ruesin, the
head of the health ministry's bird flu information centre.
Her death takes Indonesia's toll from the disease to 45, the highest of
any country.
“Bird flu is rife in Cikelet. You can always find dead or sick chickens
there,” Ruesin said.
A 17-year-old boy in the same village has also tested positive for bird
flu, but has stayed at home and refused to be treated at the main
hospital in Bandung, the provincial capital to the south of Jakarta.
The boy's condition was improving and he was being constantly monitored
by health officials, said Health Ministry spokeswoman Lily Sulistyawati.
“He is a survivor and he is doing very well,” she said.
Samples from his relatives and neighbours in Cikelet, 90km from Bandung,
have been taken and the results are awaited.
“We have taken necessary steps in the area. Health and agriculture
officials are conducting constant surveillance,” she said, adding that
people who had contact with the boy had been given the anti-viral drug
Tamiflu.
The boy's 20-year-old cousin died earlier this month with bird flu-like
symptoms but his samples could not be taken.
Contact with sick fowl is the usual mode of transmission of the H5N1
bird flu virus that is endemic in poultry in nearly all of Indonesia's
provinces.
Most of the human cases in Indonesia have occurred this year and the
country has been criticised for not doing enough to stamp out H5N1.
The virus remains essentially an animal disease but experts fear it
could spark a pandemic if it mutates into a form that can pass easily
among people.