NEW CLUSTER IN INDONESIA?

Bird flu case confirmed in possible cluster

The Jakarta Post, Bandung, Jakarta

Health officials said Tuesday they were examining possible intra-human transmission of bird flu in West Java, where a hospitalized 20-year-old male resident of Bandung tested positive for the virus.

It brings bird flu cases to 67 in Indonesia, which holds the world record of 51 deaths, including 40 this year.

The director of Hasan Sadikin General Hospital in Bandung, Cissy Rachiana Prawira, said Tuesday the central laboratory in Jakarta confirmed the young man was infected with H5N1.

His 23-year-old brother had died Sunday afternoon before he could be taken to hospital for testing. Their sister, aged 15, was admitted to the hospital Monday night after developing a fever and cough.

It has led to speculation that it is a cluster infection, with the family possibly infected from the same source.

Hadi Jusuf, who heads the bird flu team at Hasan Sadikin, said the younger brother's condition had not improved since his treatment began in an isolation ward at the hospital.

He remains unconscious and showed signs of respiratory distress, Hadi said. His white blood cell level is still under 2,000.

"He's still on a ventilator and we are watching him closely. The pneumonia which was previously only found on the lower side of his left lung has now spread to both sides."

The parents of the three are still in shock, especially with the investigation into their eldest son's infection with H5N1 focusing on the family's feeding of dead chickens to their dogs.

"I don't want my youngest child to be sick either. That's why when she complained that she had fever, headache and cough, I immediately took her to the hospital," the mother told journalists at home, as the Bandung agriculture office took blood samples of 13 chickens and four ducks they kept to see if the animals were infected with H5N1.

The head of the Bandung health office, Gunadi S. Bhinekas, said his office would increase its public awareness campaigns about bird flu and sanitation to keep the virus from spreading. Poultry infections in Bandung have been found in 14 subdistricts.

"We are working with the agriculture office to closely watch the slaughterhouses and to do mapping of the areas with bird flu cases in poultry."

The head of the Bandung agriculture office, Yogi Supardjo, said his office had difficulty in monitoring the traffic of poultry in the West Java capital.

"We can't monitor it all the time, so we're asking people to take the initiative to vaccinate their poultry and maintain proper sanitation."

Meanwhile, the Indonesian Committee for Bird Flu Control and Influenza Pandemic Preparedness said the government was investigating the latest bird flu fatality, a nine-year-old boy who died Friday in Jakarta.

The boy, believed to have had contact with sick chickens, died in a hospital nine days after he first showed symptoms of the virus, including high fever and difficulty breathing.

In a statement released on Monday night, the committee also urged local figures and leaders to be involved in the campaign to raise public awareness about bird flu.