# 5126
Yesterday Dutchy received an email from a Ministry of Health official in Indonesia saying that the 21-year-old woman from West Java, Indonesia admitted to Hasan Sadikin (RSHS) back on November 22nd had tested positive for the H5N1 virus.
That confirmation was posted on FluTrackers here, and was picked up by ProMed Mail overnight.
This morning, the local media in Indonesia has picked up the story as well. This translation, again from Dutchy, is of an article that appears in today’s Tempo Interaktif.
A citizen of Bandung Positive Bird Flu
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 8, 2010 |
TEMPO Interactive , Bandung - The bird flu virus re-emerged. Specific Diseases and Isolation Team Hasan Sadikin Hospital, Bandung, ensure there is an infection of influenza A subtype H5N1 virus in a resident Street Holis, Bandung.
The source of the virus so far unknown.
The spokesman said team doctors Primal Sudjana, Hasan Sadikin Hospital has received confirmation from the Agency for Health Development Research Ministry of Health Jakarta, which examine a sample Ny. K, 21 years old. "Today has received a positive result (bird flu)," he told Tempo on Wednesday (8 / 12).
<SNIP>
To this day, according to the Section Head of Monitoring Disease Yorisa Sativa, husband and child patients are also neighbors who live in the same house no one contracted the virus.
"They did not keep poultry at home also no sudden deaths of poultry in the vicinity of their homes," he said, Wednesday (8 / 12).
You can read the entire translation here.
Four days ago, I wrote at some length (see Indonesia: The Long Wait For Test Results) about this case, and the amount of time it was taking to get a test result.
Testing for the virus can be difficult. The good news is that Depkes – the Ministry of Health – publicly acknowledged the positive result once they had it.
As the northern hemisphere moves into winter we are already seeing an uptick in the number of H5N1 reports in humans, wild birds, and poultry. This is to be expected, and has been the pattern since the virus re-emerged in 2003.
Despite limitations to surveillance, the number of human infections around the world obviously remains quite low.
The virus remains poorly adapted to human physiology, and despite ample opportunities in places like Egypt and Indonesia, only causes rare, sporadic infections.
The concern, of course, is that over time that may change. And so the world remains at Pre-pandemic Phase III on the H5N1 virus, and we continue to watch for signs that the virus is adapting to humans.
Cases such as the one cited above, with no obvious direct contact with sick or diseased birds, warrant additional scrutiny.
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