Suspected Indonesia bird flu cases pass 50 – officials

By Ade Rina and Jerry Norton

JAKARTA (Reuters) – Indonesia faces more than 50 suspected
cases of deadly bird flu, Indonesian health ministry officials
said on Thursday, while lowering their figure on deaths from
the disease to five from an earlier estimate of six.

Bird flu has killed 65 people in four Asian nations since
late 2003 and has been found in birds in Russia and Europe.

Experts’ greatest fear is that the H5N1 bird flu virus,
which has the power to kill one out of every two people it
infects, could set off a pandemic if it gains the ability to be
passed easily among people.

“Until now, we reported 63 suspected (cases) of bird flu,”
I Nyoman Kandun, who heads disease control at Indonesia’s
health ministry, told Reuters on Thursday.

But while 10 of those suspected have died, five of the
casualties proved to be from other causes, he said.

That leaves five deaths the ministry believes were due to
bird flu.

Riadi, a ministry public relations staffer handling flu
issues, said suspected cases have come from nine provinces
across Indonesia’s sprawling archipelago.

Figures on both bird flu deaths and suspected cases in
Indonesia, the world’s fourth most populous nation, have
sometimes been confusing since the country reported its first
casualties in July.

Common symptoms of the disease, such as pneumonia, can have
other causes, while local testing has not always squared with
results from Hong Kong which are recognized by the World Health
Organization (WHO).

Asked about suspected cases on Thursday, WHO spokeswoman
Sari Setiyogi said: “We refuse to use the term ‘suspect’
because suspect is too broad. It can mean anything.”

According to the international agency’s standards, she
said: “We have four positive bird flu cases (in Indonesia).
Three died, one is still alive. Probable cases are (an
additional) nine.”

Indonesia has formed a special team to prepare for any bird
flu pandemic and coordinate foreign assistance and funding.

The formation of the team under the ministry’s National
Pandemic Aid Plan was announced on Wednesday.

“Other countries have committed to help in terms of
providing equipment, expert paramedics, that sort of stuff. We
are concentrating on paramedic training and preparing
hospitals,” health minister Siti Fadillah Supari said.

While experts say the virus could have passed in a few
cases from person to person among those who had had very close
and sustained contact in the last two years, it has yet to
mutate into a form that would allow it to do that easily.

Millions died in past flu pandemics.

The virus has spread to fowl in 22 provinces out of 33 in
Indonesia, killing more than 9.5 million domesticated birds
since 2003. Indonesia has said it would cull poultry in areas
where the outbreak was serious, but little has been done so
far.