Indonesia : Family Takes Dying Bird Flu Victim Home, Dies One Hour Later

16 Year Old Girl Suffering Bird Flu In Critical Condition

What sort of madness is this? Are all the family members now under quarantine? How many people did this dying woman come into contact with on her way out of the hospital and on the way home?

A 32-year-old Indonesian woman died from bird flu at her home after being forced to check out of a hospital by her family, the Health Ministry said Monday, raising the country's death toll from the disease to 95.

Two laboratory tests confirmed she was infected with the H5N1 strain of the virus, said Joko Suyono, an official at the Bird Flu Information Center.

The woman from the western outskirts of the capital, Jakarta, came down with severe pneumonia and went to a hospital Wednesday. Her family signed a forced release form the next day and she died an hour after being checked out, Suyono said. It was unclear why her relatives did not want her to be treated at the hospital.

Are all the family members now under quarantine? How many people did this dying woman come into contact with on her way out of the hospital and on the way home?

The Jakarta Post reports the announcement of yet another teenage Indonesian bird flu victim. Her chances of survival sound slim at best :

A 16-year-old patient suffering from bird flu has been admitted to Persahabatan Hospital in Rawamangun, East Jakarta.

The head the hospital's bird flu anticipation division, Mukhtar Ikhsan, said the patient's condition was bad.

"The patient has suffered acute pneumonia," he said as quoted by tempointeraktif.com.

YF is the first patient treated for bird flu at the hospital this year. The hospital has treated as many as 14 bird flu patients with 12 deaths.

So the hospital has a bird flu victim fatality rate of 80%.

Bird Flu Linked To Human Deaths In Indonesia, Egypt, Vietnam

Christmas Day saw the deaths of two young women believed to have been infected with the H5N1 virus :

In Egypt, a 25-year-old woman died Christmas day after being hospitalized on Dec. 21. The woman, from Bany Suwef Governorate, was the first case in Egypt since July, WHO officials said. The source of her exposure was being investigated.

Egypt has 39 confirmed cases of bird flu, with 16 of them fatal, since 2006.

In Indonesia, a 24-year-old woman from West Jakarta, also died Dec. 25 from bird flu. The woman developed symptoms on Dec. 14 and was hospitalized five days later. It was not immediately known how she contracted the virus.

Xinhau is reporting the death of a four year old child in the Son La province of Vietnam. The child was suffering high fever and pneumonia, two symptoms of bird flu infection :

The child ate a dead chicken before developing bird flu symptoms. Specimens from the child are being tested for bird flu virus strain H5N1, the representative told a meeting of the country's Anti-Bird Flu Steering Committee on Tuesday.

Vietnam has detected seven bird flu patients from the five northern provinces of Vinh Phuc, Thai Nguyen, Thanh Hoa, Ha Nam and Ha Tay since May 10, of whom four died, according to the ministry's Preventive Medicine Department.

Indonesia : At Least Four Recent Human Bird Flu Victims Had No Contact With Infected Poultry



Depending on which media, or government reports you believe, there has been at least 20 human bird flu infections in recent months, in Pakistan, China and Indonesia, where the victim had no known contact with infected poultry, which has been the most common way humans become infected with H5N1.

Indonesia 'bird flu officials' are now investigating at least four cases of human infection, where the most likely source of infection is human transmission. The same AFP story reveals that 20 percent of human bird flu infections in 2006 were not linked to infected poultry. But in 2007, that figure has risen to 3o percent. The good news for Indonesia is that human deaths from H5N1 have dropped in 2007 :

"In the last three to four months, we have had four cases where the poultry in the victim's neighbourhoods (tested) negative for the virus," said Bayu Krisnamurthi, head of Indonesia's National Avian Influenza Committee.

"The number is significant enough for us to intensify our investigations so that we could have a more accurate explanation," he told a press briefing giving an overview of what has happened in Indonesia this year with bird flu.

Krisnamurthi nevertheless insisted that Indonesia had made progress in tackling bird flu, with the number of reported cases decreasing this year.

In 2007, 40 cases were confirmed with 35 fatalities, compared to figures of 55 and 45, respectively, in 2006.

But he also conceded that Indonesia needed more effective measures, particularly to combat bird flu in poultry.

According to Krisnamurthi, even though the agriculture ministry vaccinated 70 percent of the country's farmed poultry in 2007, "the quality of the vaccine must be improved," he said.

Bird Flu Returns To Asia, Deaths In Three Countries

This report in the Jakarta Post supplies a fairly comprehensive round-up of recent events, and makes for a concerning 'big picture' view of the H5N1 spread :

Bird flu has resurfaced in parts of Asia, with human deaths reported in Indonesia and China and fresh poultry outbreaks plaguing other countries during the winter months when the virus typically flares.

Indonesia, the nation hardest hit by the H5N1 virus, announced its 93rd death on Friday after a 47-year-old man died a day earlier in a Jakarta hospital, said Health Ministry spokesman Joko Suyono. He fell ill on Dec. 2 and was admitted with flu-like symptoms, becoming Indonesia's 115th person infected with the disease.

In China, the military in eastern Nanjing banned the sale of poultry this week after a father and son were sickened by the disease earlier this month. Health officials confirmed the 24-year-old man died from the virus a day before his father, 52, became sick. It was the country's 17th bird flu death.The two were believed to have eaten a traditional dish known as "beggar's chicken," in which the bird is wrapped in lotus leaves and baked. However, the cause of infection remained unclear. The father is recovering after taking the antiviral Tamiflu, said Hans Troedsson, World Health Organization representative in China. More than 80 people who had contact with the family were being monitored for symptoms.

Local animal health officials said last week no H5N1 outbreaks had been detected among the province's poultry, but Troedsson said sick birds typically are not reported prior to human deaths in China...

That's startling news. Mass deaths of poultry birds aren't officially logged unless their human deaths?

Officials in Pakistan were investigating the country's first suspected bird flu cases Friday after two poultry farm workers died this week after being hospitalized with flu-like symptoms in Peshawar, said Khushdil Khan, medical superintendent of the Khyber Teaching Hospital.

Meanwhile, the disease has resurfaced in several provinces across Vietnam in recent months, killing or forcing the slaughter of thousands of birds. So far, 46 people have died from the virus nationwide.

Hong Kong closed its famed Mai Po bird sanctuary to the public for three weeks starting Friday after a wild gray heron discovered nearby tested positive for the virus.

Russia and Poland also have experienced recent outbreaks among poultry, but neither have detected human cases.

Indonesia : Two Bird Flu Deaths In Four Days

The confirmed human death toll from H5N1 in Indonesia now stands at 93. The unofficial figure, meaning deaths that were not logged by medical authorities, are believed to be much higher.

From Reuters :

A Indonesian man from an area west of the capital Jakarta died from bird flu on Thursday, an official said...

Runizar Roesin, head of the bird flu centre in Jakarta, told Reuters the 47-year-old man from Tangerang died on Thursday evening.

The man, who had kept ducks at his home, had tested positive for bird flu and was being treated at a hospital in Jakarta, a Health Ministry official said on Wednesday.

Earlier this week, a 28-year-old woman, also from Tangerang, died of bird flu after being treated at the same hospital.

Two deaths at the same Indonesian hospital in less than one week, with both patients being treated with anti-virals after the onset of the virus.

Poor Nations Ask "Why Should Be Share H5N1 Samples, When Rich Nations Won't?"

Forget The People, Says US, Patents Must Be Protected

In a perfect world, world pharmaceutical giants would put aside the profit sheet in the face of a coming pandemic we've been repeatedly told could wipe out as many as a few hundred million people and work together, with the poorer nations, to create the kinds of vaccines that may help to halt the spread of a highly pathogenic H5N1 virus.

After all, who wants to loose that many potential future customers for larger profits in the interrum?

But instead we have an absurd situation where countries like Indonesia are now forced to virtually hold their H5N1 samples hostage to ensure that whatever vaccines result from such samples will be made available to its people, in the event of a pandemic, for reasonable prices.

From Xinhua :

Richer nations and drugmakers refused to share their bird flu virus samples which upset developing countries that wanted to develop cheap vaccines by the virus samples, media reported Monday.

Developing states like Indonesia -- which with 91 of the 206 human bird flu deaths since 2003 is the hardest hit country -- want guarantees from richer nations and drugmakers that they will have access to cheap vaccines if they share samples.

"We must have equitable sharing of benefits arising from the use of viruses through a fair, transparent and equitable mechanism. It is the moral thing to do," said Siti Fadillah Supari, Health Minister of Indonesia.

The WHO agreed last May to revamp its 50-year-old system for sharing flu virus samples with researchers and drug firms. It had wanted its 191 member states to adopt an agreement by May but divisions remain.

John Lange, U.S. special representative for avian and pandemic influenza, ruled out any automatic reward for sharing.

Research and development of vaccines was "very risky, time-consuming and extremely expensive" and it was critical to protect patents to ensure their continued development, he said.

You would think there would be nothing more expensive in the history of mankind than a bird flu pandemic that kills more people than the 1918 'Spanish Flu' wipeout.

Indonesia is also well aware that if they hand over H5N1 samples, and a vaccine is patented from such samples, they may find they are not allowed to develop their own vaccines from the same, now patented, viral strains.

You can understand Indonesia's reluctance.

What is more important to protect? People, or patents?

Indonesia : Bird Flu Claims Another Life - Toll At 91

From Xinhau :

An Indonesian man of 31 years old has died on avian influenza, the country's health ministry said here Saturday.

The man, from Riau province in Sumatra Island, died on Tuesday after three days treatment in a hospital. Laboratory tests indicated that he was contracted by H5N1 virus, said Djoko Suyono, official of the anti-bird flu centre of the ministry.

"He died on November 6. Two of laboratory tests showed that he is positive of bird flu," he told Xinhua.

The man died when he was shifting from a hospital in a regency to another one at the provincial capital of Pekanbaru, said Suyono.

He begun to have the symptoms of the disease three days before he went to the hospital, said Suyono.

No word yet on how the 31 year old came to be infected with H5N1.

Suspected Human Bird Flu Deaths In Vietnam And Indonesia

The bird flu virus is gaining ground again in Vietnam, killing hundreds of ducks and reportedly claiming a human life as well :

A South Korean man died of pneumonia in Can Tho city Monday, local doctors, who suspect he had contracted bird flu, said.

The man was taken to the city General Hospital at 3:00AM Monday with high fever and breathing problems. He died at 2:00PM.

The doctors have sent his blood samples to Pasteur Institute in Ho Chi Minh City to test for the H5N1 strain of bird flu virus, which has caused 100 infections and 46 deaths in Vietnam in the last few years.

The Tangerang district of Indonesia has also seen another human bird flu death :

Suharda Ningrum said it was not yet clear whether the 30-year-old victim had been in contact with sick fowl, but chickens belonging to a neighbour had died suddenly. The woman lived in Tangerang, west of the capital Jakarta.

Contact with sick fowl is the most common way for humans to contract the H5N1 strain of the virus.

"Two tests were confirmed positive for bird flu. Her neighbour's chickens died suddenly but it is unclear whether she had direct contact with the dead fowl," said Ningrum, adding that the woman had died in Jakarta's Persahabatan hospital.

Indonesia : 4 Year Old Girl Dies From H5N1, Brother Shows Symptoms

Her parents thought she just had the flu, and gave her cold medications and treated her at home for a week before they tried to have her seen doctors at two medical clinics in Tangerang. Both medical clinics refused to admit the child. In total, she ran a fever for ten days. She was finally admitted to a hospital in East Jakarta where the four year old died on Monday.

From the Jakarta Post :

The child's parents were told that Sari Asih military hospital, about 500 meters away, had better facilities and to take her there.

"I took her to Kesdam Hospital but they said they couldn't treat her because there was no doctor on duty. They told us to take her to Sari Asih Hospital," said Zainal, a factory worker.

He said a doctor who examined his daughter at Sari Asih initially said she had dengue fever but later changed his mind, noting acute respiratory problems.

"The Sari Asih doctor sent my daughter to Persahabatan Hospital but she could no longer hang on."

Hani Hariyanto said that people from the village had recently acknowledged that sudden poultry deaths had occurred in the past, long before the girl fell ill, however. He said officials had been sent to carry out health education in the village. "Too bad, the villagers did not inform us earlier."

(Her) brother has flu symptoms and has been given Tamiflu..

The Tangerang regency has recorded six human bird flu deaths since January.

Indonesia : 12 Year Old Boy Dies From H5N1

88th Official Victim Of Bird Flu In Indonesia

The death rate in Indonesia seems to climbing again :

A 12-year-old Indonesian boy died of bird flu on Saturday, raising the toll in the nation worst affected by avian flu to 88, the health ministry said.

The boy, who tested positive for the H5N1 virus, died in a hospital here at 7:30 am (0030 GMT), said Nirwan, a staffer on duty at the Health Ministry's bird flu information centre.

"Medical doctors at the hospital were meeting to discuss his case, since he showed great improvement in his health condition, with his white-blood cell count rising, but the boy suddenly died at 7:30 this morning," said Nirwan.

Results of two tests on blood and saliva samples taken from the boy on Thursday showed he was infected by the deadly H5N1 strain, making him the country's 109th confirmed human bird flu infection case, of which 88 have died.

The boy, only identified by his initials IR, first showed symptoms of bird flu on September 30 but was only admitted to hospital in Tangerang, just west of here, on October 8.

"The boy had a history of contact with a dead infected chicken near his school," Nirwan said.

Indonesia : Woman Dies Of Bird Flu

The steady tick over of human bird flu victims in Indonesia continues :

A woman thought to be suffering from bird flu died at the Arifin Achmad Regional General Hospital on Friday, an official said.

"The patient was treated in an isolation ward for bird flu patients at Arifin Achmad Regional General Hospital," Burhanudin Agung of the Riau provincial health office said.

Riau has recorded four bird flu cases since 2005, with three casualties.

The official toll of human bird flu deaths in Indonesia is now 87, though the unofficial toll is suspected to be much higher.

Indonesia Clocks Up 86th Human Bird Flu Death

From AFP :

A 21-year-old man from the Indonesian capital Jakarta died from bird flu last week, the health ministry said Monday, bringing the toll in the world's worst-affected nation to 86.

"This confirmed case puts the number now at 107 infected, including 86 dead," Ningrum, a doctor from Indonesia's bird flu information centre, told AFP.

The victim, identified only by the initials "AR", died on Friday at a hospital in West Jakarta, said Ningrum.

He had tested positive for the H5N1 virus in two separate tests, the requirement to be reported as a confirmed case in Indonesia.

The man first suffered flu-like symptoms 10 days earlier but was only admitted to hospital three days before he died, Ningrum said.

It was not known whether he had come into contact with infected poultry, the usual method of transmission, she added.

Has the total fatality rate for H5N1 been reduced in recent months. I thought it was up to about 92. Have to check the records.

Indonesia Rejects US Study That Claimed Human To Human Spread Of Bird Flu

Indonesia has labelled "misleading" a US study that claims the H5N1 virus spread amongst members of the same North Sumatran family, killing seven, in April 2006 :

Indonesia's Health Minister Siti Fadillah Supari said the research findings had "misled the public".

"It's pure logic... If there had been human-to-human transmission, it would have already swept the country and killed thousands," Supari told a news conference.

"Our scientists have already determined that the 2006 outbreak on North Sumatra was not a case of human-to-human transmission."

Bird flu is endemic in bird populations in most parts of Indonesia, where millions of backyard chickens live in close proximity to people.

While it is largely an animal disease, experts fear the virus could mutate and spread from human to human, turning into pandemic that could kill millions.

Contact with sick fowl is the most common way for humans to contract the disease.

Supari said tests done in WHO laboratories in Atlanta on virus samples from Bali showed the virus had jumped from animal to humans.

"There is nothing to worry about, so far Atlanta has not issued any alarm," she said after the news conference.

The US study's claims should be questioned, examined and debated, but I'm not too sure if Supari's "pure logic" argument is altogether correct.

While contact with infected poultry would appear to be the most likely way for a human to become infected by H5N1, there have been other instances where bird to human, and then human to human spread is the most likely scenario for how others have become infected.

In the case of the North Sumatra outbreak, in April, 2006, some 80% of family members who showed symptoms of infection are believed to have died from the virus, and only one member of the family traveled outside of the fairly isolated village where the deaths occurred.

Also, Indonesian and WHO medical specialists were on the ground within days of the scale of the outbreak becoming known, and most of the villagers were put onto anti-virals, and quarantined.

The North Sumatran H5N1 deaths may well have been the result of human to human spread of the virus, but as the local population was small, isolated and fairly quickly locked down, there would appear to be little opportunity for the virus to continue to spread and infect, and kill.

Clearly, Supari would be right if the bird flu virus had mutated into a far more easily communicable and deadlier strain. But from the WHO statements I recall reading at the time, they reported no significant mutation in the virus samples they collected from the dead and samples from those who became infected but survived.

See This Story For More On The Controversial US Study That Claimed Human To Human Transmission In Indonesia

Bird Flu Pandemic : How Close Did We Come?

Another story covering the US research that claims human to human transmission of the bird flu virus did occur in Indonesia in 2006, when eight members of the same family caught the virus, killing seven.

From ABC News Australia :

It is the nightmare possibility that health authorities have been fearing ever since the disease first appeared.

It happened in Indonesia last year and reveals the world only narrowly avoided a global bird flu pandemic.

Researchers from the University of Washington have studied the case of a woman on the Indonesian island of Sumatra who caught the H5N1 bird flu virus from poultry in May last year.

Professor Ira Longini, who led the research, says they have confirmed that not only did she pass the virus on to her 10-year-old nephew, it was then transmitted to other relatives.

Seven of eight family members who caught the disease were soon dead.

"This proves there is person-to-person transmission in this case, in that setting, in Indonesia, northern Sumatra," he said.

Professor Longini says this shows there is a serious threat of a bird flu pandemic.

"It could happen and will happen eventually, and this simply confirms this particular H5N1 virus is capable of person-to-person transmission," he said.

"The other thing it says is that we need to be very vigilant to find these clusters, to assess whether there's transmission and to stop transmission as quickly as we can each time they arise.

"We're going to see strains of influenza that are capable of causing pandemics arising, probably avian strains, and that will happen for sure, there's no doubt about it."

Professor Longini says in this case, a pandemic may have been averted because of the quick action of health authorities or, statistically at least, it could have been luck.

He said because the sample group was so small, it was impossible to say how fast the disease could have spread in the workplace or the street.

But he says that in the home, it was a fast mover.

"It had about a one-third chance of transmitting from person to person due to close contact in that household setting," he said.

Other scientists say the research confirms their suspicions about the disease.

Dr Alan Hampson is a member of the World Health Organisation's (WHO) Pandemic Taskforce and an adviser to the Australian Government on influenza.

"This study has looked at the dynamics of the spread of the virus in the family environment in Sumatra and has come down with the conclusion that it clearly does show person-to-person transmission," he said.

"We had already believed that that was probably the case and we haven't had confirmation through analysis of the viruses.

"The information relating to those viruses is information that's held in Indonesia, so we haven't seen that, but what we do believe, from people who have seen the information, is that that too indicated that it was person-to-person spread and that the virus was changing as it spread from one person to another, as we would expect it to do."

Dr Hampson says the Sumatra case could have become a pandemic.

"If it had gone further, we do know that the virus is very good at adapting, so while on the one hand it may have to go through a number of steps, if its passage is from one person to another, then that chance is there," he said

Indonesia : Researchers Confirm Bird Flu Virus Passed From Human To Human During April 2006 "Cluster" Outbreak

World Health Organisation Failed To Raise Alert Level When Eight Members Of Same Family Died From H5N1

"We Dodged A Bullet"

How close did we come to a pandemic outbreak of the bird flu virus amongst humans in 2006?

American researchers now claim we "dodged a bullet", because the H5N1 virus did pass from family member to family member during a surge of deaths in Indonesia in April, 2006 :

Ira Longini and colleagues at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Centre in Seattle looked at two clusters - one in which eight family members died in Sumatra in 2006, and another in Turkey in which eight people were infected and four died.

Experts were almost certain the Sumatra case was human-to-human transmission, but were eager to see more proof.

"We find statistical evidence of human-to-human transmission in Sumatra, but not in Turkey," they wrote in a report published in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases.

"This does not mean that no low-level human-to-human spread occurred in this outbreak, only that we lack statistical evidence of such spread."

In Sumatra, one of Indonesia's islands, a 37-year-old woman appears to have infected her 10-year-old nephew, who infected his father. DNA tests confirmed that the strain the father died of was very similar to the virus found in the boy's body.

"It went two generations and then just stopped, but it could have gotten out of control," Mr Longini said.

"The world really may have dodged a bullet with that one, and the next time, we might not be so lucky."

The researchers estimated the secondary-attack rate, which is the risk that one person will infect another, was 20 per cent. This is similar to what is seen for regular, seasonal influenza A in the United States.

The Indonesian government admitted there was probably human to human spread in the April-May, 2006, "cluster" of deaths. Here's a report on that.

Back in June, 2006, a spokesman for the World Health Organisaion referred to the Indonesian outbreak, where ultimately eight members of the same family died, as "the mother of all (bird flu) clusters".

There was a very real sense of panic, particularly in the Indonesian government and the World Health Organisation, that this was it, the beginning of a worldwide pandemic. But little of that terror filtered through to the media.

The WHO admitted, back then, it was possible that human to human transmission had occurred, but denied the virus had mutated into one that could pass more easily amongst humans, the event that all concerned fear the most.

If human to human transmission did occur during the Sumatra "cluster" of deaths, it is interesting to look back now on a decision by the World Health Organisation mid last year to not raise the pandemic 'Alert' level they use, and of which we have heard nothing about since June 2006 :

WHO won't yet raise the Global Pandemic Alert level from Phase 3 to Phase 4..

Phase 3 translates as Human Infection : Rare Human To Human Transmission

Phase 4 translates as Human Infections : Small Clusters With Limited Human To Human Transmission, but during which the spread is highly localised.

There is good reason for the World Health Organisation to be reluctant to go with Phase 4.

When they officially confirmed that seven members of the same family had died of the bird flu virus, the Indonesian currency plummeted and stocks in airliners and travel companies plunged on fears of a pandemic cutting into airline industry profits, and of a general weakening of the Indonesian tourism industry due to decreased tourists, scared off by fears of the virus.

It's an incredibly fine balancing act that the World Health Organisation must conduct in raising its bird flu-related alert and warning levels.

Ramping up from Phase Three to Phase Four can slash billions from a nation's economy virtually overnight, as stocks tumble and tourists cancel trips.

But delaying the increased level of threat and warning over human deaths could also see the virus spreading much farther than it might have if the warnings were raised earlier. The further the virus spreads through a country or region, and the more people it kills, the greater the economic damage.

It's clear now that the World Health Organisation probably should have moved the Alert level from Phase Three to Phase Four, because there were clear signs of "clusters" and limited spread of the virus from human to human.

They didn't do this, but the bird flu deaths in humans slowed. In the end the WHO made the right decision and probably saved the Indonesian economy from suffering more damage than it did.

The bullet was dodged.


There were nine officially recognised bird flu-related deaths in Indonesia in only ten days through late March and early April this year, and at least 12 in a 30 day period.

April 7 : A 29 year man who died on Thursday in Central Java was confirmed Saturday as being H5N1 positive.

April 6 : 16 year old girl dies in Jakarta, believed to have had contact with sick chicekns.

April 5 : 29 year man in Central Java dies.

April 4 : 23 year old woman dies.

March 29 : 14 year old boy in West Sumatra dies - 28 year old woman in Jakarta dies.

March 28 : 39 year old man dies in Surabaya.

March 27 : 15 year old boy in West Java dies - 22 year old woman in Sumatra dies.

March 20 : 21 year woman in East Java dies.

March 16 : 32 year old man dies in Jakarta.

March 12 : 20 year old woman dies in East Java.


May, 2006 : Five Members Of Indonesian Family Die From Bird Flu In One Week

June, 2006 : The Bird Flu "Storm" In Indonesia

June, 2006 : Bird Flu Is Now "Probably" Spreading Human To Human In Indonesia

"The Mother Of All Bird Flu Clusters"

Bali : 2nd Victim Dies As Virus Claims 28 Year Old Woman

Indonesia : Another Bird Flu Death Where Victim Had No Direct Contact With Infected Poultry

A string of bird flu deaths and infections in Indonesia, and its province of Bali.

Particularly troubling is the growing number of victims who have had no contact with infected poultry before they died, or direct contact with an already infected family member. Contact with infected poultry or an infected family member is the consistent cause of infection for those who have died from the H5N1 virus across the world, but particularly in Indonesia :

A woman who suspectedly died of bird flu in Bali on Tuesday has tested positive for bird flu, bringing the death toll on the resort island to two and in Indonesia to 84, the Health Ministry said Wednesday.

The 28-year-old woman - who worked for a chicken trader - died Tuesday after being hospitalized for four days, said spokesman Joko Suyono."Tests in two local laboratories came back positive" for the H5N1 strain of the disease, he said. However, he could not say whether samples will be sent to a WHO-collaborating laboratory for confirmation.

From the Jakarta Post :

The Health Ministry's laboratory has confirmed a Tangerang domestic helper died from the bird flu virus Friday...

The victim died at Tangerang's Sari Asih Hospital on Tuesday after two days of treatment for a high fever and acute pneumonia...

The maid's employers, Wahyu Proyato and Winda Amalia, who are residents of Perumnas II in Tangerang regency, said they had no idea how their maid contracted the virus because there were no fowl at their home or in the neighborhood.

Wahyu said his family and the housemaid did not have direct contact with live poultry and birds near the house.

This death follows the reported death of a 17 year old girl in Tangerang on August 14 from the bird flu virus. The 17 year old girl was also reported to have had no contact with infected poultry.

Are these non-poultry contact human deaths the reason why Indonesia has now relented and decided to share H5N1 virus samples with the World Health Organisation?

More people infected by possible bird flu in Bali.

A two year old has also been hospitalised in Indonesia, showing signs of bird flu infection.

Bali has now banned poultry imports from Java, and are beginning culls of an estimated 5400 poultry birds.

Indonesia : 17 Year Old Dies Of Bird Flu

Victim Had 'No Contact With Infected Chickens'

According this story, a 17 year old Indonesian girl who died from the bird flu virus had no contact with chickens, or H5N1 infected poultry :

The 17-year-old maid from Tangerang west of Jakarta died on Tuesday after falling ill with a high fever last week, Joko Suyono of the ministry's bird flu centre said by telephone.

The most common way for humans to become infected with the H5N1 virus is through contact with sick fowl, but officials were still investigating how she contracted the disease.

"There were no fowl in the neighbourhood. The family doesn't keep any and she had no direct contact with chickens..."

Indonesia has had 104 confirmed human cases from bird flu out of which 83 had been fatal, the highest death toll for any country in the world.

Experts fear if the virus develops the ability to pass easily between humans, millions might die in a pandemic

The World Health Organisation, and the majority of media reports covering the 200 odd official deaths attributed to the bird flu virus usually cite contact with H5N1 infected poultry as the main source for contracting the virus.

At the moment, it's a mystery how the teenager became infected.

The 17 year old's death is the third human death in Indonesia attributed to the bird flu virus in the past eight days. On the weekend, news broke that a mother and daughter, in Bali, both died from the virus.

You can read a report on the Bali deaths here.

WHO Says Indonesia's Refusal To Share Live H5N1 Samples Puts World "At Risk"

The World Health Organisation is still demanding Indonesia hand over recent samples of the live H5N1 virus collected during operations to control bird flu outbreaks. By not doing so, the WHO says, the "entire planet" is being put at risk.

But Jakarta says it is still not happy with agreements that Indonesia will get equal and inexpensive access to any vaccines created from its samples :

Indonesia has yet to resume sharing samples from human bird flu victims with the World Health Organization, jeopardizing not o­nly the Asian nation but the entire planet, the UN health agency said Monday.

David Heymann, the assistant director-general for communicable diseases at WHO, said the agency had received three specimens from Jakarta in May, but none contained any live virus.

"What's important is that all countries share viruses that they isolate from humans," Heymann said.

"By not sharing the viruses, Indonesia is ... putting in danger its own populations, because if those viruses are not freely shared with industry, vaccines will not contain the elements of the Indonesia infections. The second thing that Indonesia is doing is therefore putting the whole world at risk."

Indonesia—the nation hit hardest by the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu—stopped sharing its samples with international scientists searching for mutations early this year because Jakarta wanted assurances that any vaccines developed would not be too expensive for developing nations.

It ended its boycott in May, however, after receiving assurances from WHO that the virus samples would be used for risk assessment and not passed o­n to private pharmaceutical companies without Jakarta's permission.

China—which had not shared H5N1 specimens with WHO for almost a year—sent bird flu samples in June. Vietnam has sent samples but has encountered shipping road blocks, Heymann said.

Jakarta Says It Will Not Share New Virus Samples Until A New Agreement Is In Place

Jakarta Warns Of 'Silent' Outbreaks Of Bird Flu In Poultry Stocks - Some Mass Poultry Deaths Believed To Go Unreported - 500,000 Poultry Killed By Bird Flu This Year

Indonesia : Bird Claims The Life Of Another Child

An Indonesian boy, six and a half years old, died of bird flu last weekend. The death toll in the Indonesian archipelago from the H5N1 virus now stands at 81, or 82, depending on which 'official' fatality count you rely. The real toll is likely to be much higher.

From the Bangkok Post :

The six-and-a-half-year-old boy, identified only by his initials SZ, is from Cilegon Municipality of West Java's Banten province.

He died on Sunday afternoon at Jakarta's Sulianti Saroso Hospital, designated to treat bird flu patients in Indonesia, said Joko Suyanto, an official at the Health Ministry's Bird Flu Information Centre.

Suyanto said the victim began showing symptoms of bird flu on July 1 and was admitted to Siloan Glen Eagle Hospital in Tanggerang, west of Jakarta, four days later. On July 5, he was transferred to the infectious disease Sulianti Saroso Hospital in North Jakarta with fever, cough, pneumonia and breathing problems.

There was no report on how the boy came to be infected with the virus.

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Man Dies After Eating Infected Chickens

While some quarters of the mega-billion dollar global poultry industry will shout from the rooftops that you cannot catch bird flu and die from eating chickens, people still catch bird flu and die from eating chickens. Chickens infected with the bird flu virus.

But now we know that a strain of the bird flu has mutated and chickens can carry the virus without showing any outward signs of infection, how are Indonesians in particular supposed to avoid eating H5N1 infected chicken meat?

From the Jakarta Post :

An Indonesian man died of bird flu after eating sick chickens, a leading health official said Thursday, raising the national death toll to 80.

Multiple blood tests confirmed the 28-year-old had the deadly H5N1 strain of the virus...

The symptoms were the standard : cough, headaches, high fever. He died three days after being hospitalised, and presumably despite being treated with antivirals like Tamiflu, which are now standard issue for any bird flu patients in Indonesian hospitals.

Perhaps Vietnam had the right idea back in early 2006 when they distributed large posters through the cities showing chicken meat that had been boiled for more than half an hour until it was yellow.

Go here for that story, and to see the 'Boil It Safe' poster