Indonesia Reels From Two New Bird Flu Deaths, Outbreak Feared

TWO Indonesian women have died of bird flu, a health ministry official said yesterday, taking the overall human death toll from the disease in the country to 61 amid a spike of new cases.

A 27-year-old woman from south Jakarta died after entering Persahabatan Hospital in the capital last Thursday for treatment, Muhammad Nadirin of the health ministry's bird flu information centre said. She died last Friday evening.

Asked whether the woman had been in contact with sick fowl, he said: "A week before she got sick, there had been dead chickens near her home."

The second death was of a 22-year-old woman from Tangerang west of Jakarta, who died in the early hours of yesterday, the official said.

Separately, an 18-year-old man being treated at a hospital was confirmed to have bird flu after his mother died of the disease last Thursday, marking a cluster case, another official said.

The husband and son of the 37-year-old woman, from Serpong in west Java, were being treated for symptoms of bird flu at Persahabatan Hospital.

Joko Suyono, another official at the bird flu information centre, said that the son had tested positive for bird flu.

It was not clear whether he had been in contact with sick birds, the official said.

There were no immediate test results on whether the father also had the virus, but Nyoman Kandun, director general of communicable disease control at the health ministry, said the positive test of the son signalled a cluster case.

The official said, however, there was no evidence of human-to-human transmission of the virus so far in this case.

The largest known cluster of human bird flu cases worldwide occurred in May 2006 in the Karo district of North Sumatra province, where as many as seven people in an extended family died. The cluster triggered fears the virus had mutated into a form that could spread easily between people.

Bird flu is endemic in around half of Indonesia's 33 provinces and the vast, developing country has struggled to contain the disease.

The latest cases bring the total number of human deaths in Indonesia to 61, the highest number in the world.

Millions of backyard chickens live in close proximity to humans and health education campaigns have often been patchy and rules difficult to enforce with the country's power structure increasingly devolved to the provinces.

Indonesian officials have, however, defended their efforts to tackle the disease.

"Aside from the latest cases, we have had some major improvements in fighting the disease but the danger is still there and the nature of this virus is random," Bayu Krisnamurthi, head of the national commission on avian influenza, said.

He said people were more vulnerable to the virus during the rainy season but hoped the latest cases did not indicate a trend.

Meanwhile, the Philippines has gone on alert to prevent any outbreak of bird flu following a resurgence of the disease in Asia, the head of the National Epidemiology Centre, said yesterday.

"We don't want to be caught off-guard," said Eric Tayag who heads the centre, tasked with countering the deadly avian influenza virus.

The centre is monitoring the cases of bird flu throughout the region, he said. People in the Philippines with flu will also be tested to make sure they do not have the disease.

In addition, the Health Department has stockpiled large supplies of the drug Tamiflu, used to fight the deadly strain of bird flu, he said.

The Bureau of Quarantine has also conducted a "simulation exercise", where an infected animal was discovered in the country. Local government units have also been trained to recognise any cases in their areas, Tayag added. The agriculture department continues to monitor poultry stocks and the entry of migratory birds.

Tayag said the government continued precautionary measures first imposed when bird flu gained worldwide attention.

Thermal scanners, used to detect possible fever in people, are still positioned at the international airport to detect people coming from abroad who may have contracted the disease.

Japan has also confirmed its first bird flu outbreak since 2005, local media said yesterday.

About 2,400 chickens have died at a farm in the south of the country, including 1,650 last Friday, reports said.

"Of the 25,000 birds interviewed in Alaska this year, none had the bird flu."

And, you might add that everyone involved with BF is/was suprised at these results.

Remember, we've never 'profiled' a pandemic before...there are bound to be many suprises and maybe not a pandemic at all. So...

VIRUS 'COULD WIPE 10% OFF DOW'

By Gillian Tett

Published: January 15 2007 02:00 | Last updated: January 15 2007 02:00

If avian flu spreads across 60 countries this year, the losses to the Dow Jones industrial index might be as a high as 10 per cent, according to analysis from Thomson Financial and the World Economic Forum, writes Gillian Tett in London.

This implies that avian flu now presents one of the biggest risks to the behaviour of stock markets this year, potentially larger than the threat posed by a terrorist attack, the researchers conclude.

The WEF project polled almost 1,000 traders and asked them to offer theoretical "prices" for the risk of certain events occurring - and then predict the likely market impact.

At present, according to the analysis, the market expects that 22 countries will suffer from bird flu this year, which would depress the Dow by 0.4 per cent.

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