# 1067
Investigators in Indonesia have a problem. The latest victim to die of the H5N1 virus was a 17 year-old maid who reportedly had no contact with poultry.
This from Australia's Herald Sun.
Indonesian teenager dies of bird flu
August 16, 2007 12:00am
A 17-YEAR-OLD Indonesian girl has died of bird flu, taking the country's death toll from the virus to 83, a health ministry official said today.
Her death comes days after a 29-year-old woman living on Bali died of the disease, becoming the resort island's first known human fatality from the H5N1 virus.
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.
"She suffered from high fever and breathing difficulties," ministry official Muhammad Nadirin said by telephone.
The victim's employer told hospital director Maruzzaman Naim that the girl, who came from Cilacap in Central Java, had only been working for three months in the area.
Officials were still investigating how she came in contact with sick fowl.
"There were no fowl in the neighbourhood. The family doesn't keep any and she had no direct contact with chickens," Naim said by telephone.
In the past Indonesian officials have used the most tenuous contacts with poultry to `prove' how patients contracted the virus.
Walking through a live bird market (where no one else was sickened, and no sick poultry were seen) has been deemed the probable source of at least one infection. Sick birds `in the neighborhood' are often enough to close the books on how someone contracted the disease.
In a nation where domesticated birds are ubiquitous, placing a victim in contact with a bird in the previous month is generally pretty easy.
But in a small percentage of cases, even with highly creative reasoning, officials have trouble finding a link with poultry.
One has to wonder just how hard officials are looking at other possible vectors when the paper reports: Officials were still investigating how she came in contact with sick fowl.
While the vast majority of human cases undoubtedly stem from contact with infected poultry, enough cases have come through where that link is unproven, and even doubtful, to make a search for additional vectors a priority.
It is important that officials not get `stuck on stupid'. They need to keep an open mind when it comes to vectors for this virus. Rounding up the `usual suspects' (sick fowl), and using extremely circumstantial evidence to convict them may make their job easier, but it makes the public no safer.
Not if there is an unidentified killer still on the loose.
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