As we tabulate the latest European country to acknowledge they have bird flu, its important not to take our eyes off clusters of human infections in southeast asia. The story below indicates that Indonesia has had at least 5 clusters. I will try to document these on the cluster page once Flu Wiki is back up to speed. In the meantime, it was worth noting that Indonesian health authorities are admitting that the clusters they are seeing are possible evidence of human to human transmission. WHO knew?
Indonesia concerned about bird flu cluster cases
Indonesia’s health minister warned that the country’s high number of so-called cluster bird flu cases was increasing the possibility of the virus mutating into a more pathogenic form.
“We are number one in terms of cluster cases,” Siti Fadilah Supari was quoted as saying by the Detikcom news portal on Wednesday.
She did not give a figure but a senior health ministry official has said Indonesia has had five cluster cases, which refers to infections among people living in close proximity to each other.
“More cluster cases usually means there has been a genetic mutation or change. This means the possibility of human-to-human transmission is near,” she reportedly said.
Last weekend, Indonesia’s toll from the potentially fatal H5N1 virus rose to 18 with two more sets of positive test results returned from a World Health Organisation (WHO)-affiliated laboratory in Hong Kong.
Two more people were hospitalized Wednesday in Indonesia with suspected bird flu, a hospital official said.
A 15-year-old girl and 27-year-old man were admitted to the Sulianti Saroso hospital for infectious diseases, hospital spokesman Ilham Patu said.
The cluster data are starting to worry me to a point of near panic. After all, it’s a short step from small clusters to the entire world The links below show why:
http://aetiology.blogspot.com/2005/11/its-small-world-after-all.html
Then also the wiki link
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_world_phenomenon
(got those over at effectmeasure)
Thank you for posting these. I just hope it holds off for a while.
Indonesian Agriculture Minister says humans are contracting the deadly H5N1 virus at a faster pace, causing more deaths see today’s report from Bloomberg. It’s not look good folks.
-keith
Indonesian Agriculture Minister says humans are contracting the deadly H5N1 virus at a faster pace, causing more deaths see today’s report from Bloomberg. It’s not looking good folks.
-keith
Ministers sound alarm over bird flu
With more human cases of bird flu being reported in the country, ministers warn the virus may be mutating into a more virulent form that is capable of being transmitted from human to human.
“The amount of time between contracting the virus and death is becoming shorter, raising the possibility the virus is becoming more virulent,” Agriculture Minister Anton Apriyantono said Wednesday before a limited Cabinet meeting with governors from five provinces to discuss efforts to combat bird flu. The meeting comes at a time of increased criticism over the government’s perceived failure to respond to the crisis with the necessary speed or force.
[snip]
Health Minister Siti Fadillah Supari said the country had experienced the highest number of bird flu cluster fatalities, which involve the infection of people living near one another. There have been six cluster fatalities reported here.
“The more cluster fatalities the greater the possibility for the virus to mutate into a form that can be easily transmitted among humans, triggering a pandemic,” Siti said after the meeting.
So this morning, their were 5 clusters. Now there are 6 clusters. We were told H5N1 would decrease in virulence as it adapted to humans. H5N1 does not appear to be listening. What’s the worst case scenario? How about a virus that gets more lethal as it adapts to humans? Kinda sounds like what’s happening in Indonesia. Which is why the Ministers over there are deeply concerned.
Meanwhile, at WHO headquarters in Geneva, we hear…
nothing.
Monotreme – at 23:09 Meanwhile, at WHO headquarters in Geneva, we hear… nothing.
Maybe Simon and Garfunkel are the WHO’s favorite group and “Sounds of Silence” their favorite song. Another entertainment reference also comes to mind. Remember this? “What we have here, is a failure to communicate” (Cool Hand Luke 1967) Ironically the WHO’s namesake the WHO (the musical group) had a song called “Won’t Get Fooled Again” :
We’ll be fighting in the streets With our children at our feet And the morals that they worship will be gone And the men who spurred us on Sit in judgement of all wrong They decide and the shotgun sings the song …… Meet the new boss Same as the old boss
KUALA LUMPUR, February 27 (Itar-Tass) — A young man died of bird flu in the Indonesian city of Bandung on Sunday bringing the death toll of the last three days to three.
The Antara news agency said six locals, including a child, were hospitalized with bird flu symptoms over the weekend in Bandung, the administrative center of the West Jawa Province.
Let’s see… 3 deaths in 3 days, that’s (where’s my calculator?)… 1 death per day. hhmmm. Believe there were some news reports recently about the virus in Indonesia NOT being matched to that in birds there?? Does anyone else hear faint alarm bells or is it just me?? =:>)
Anybody catchin this? Virus mutating. 3 Deaths 3 days. 1 per day. Ding Ding Ding Ding. (sorry it’s been a long day)
I caught it- toss that in with the questions about the mutations there- and that’s a whole lot of worry. I think it’s too early to know what the full story is though.
Is anyone actually recieving any reliable reports from Indonesia? getting kinda nervous down here in Oz..
Guess they hit the 20th (confirmed H5N1)death this past Mon. http://www.forbes.com/work/feeds/afx/2006/02/26/afx2553816.html …”her test results came back from the US”..
( I need to sleep, and I don’t want to hear “It’s a Small World After All” imagining little Black Death skeletons with scythes dancing about…)
Kuala Lumpur, in Malaysia, has a population of about 1,401,400 in the city, and, its twin towers are in the 10km quarantine zone.
The Indonesian administration in Jakarta has been described as “corrupt and inefficient”. Oh how reassurring…
Indonesian Minister: Bird Flu Situation Now “Emergency” Agriculture Minister Anton Apriyantono states: “The situation in Indonesia is concerning, no ordinary response will do”
“This might be an emergency for the poultry but given that human to human transmission is yet to be proven, it is not yet an emergency for humans”
It is NOT YET and emergency for humans…..tick tick tick
I have a very bad feeling about what is transpiring there. Truly don’t think we have long to wait. I go through cycles in my preping. Need a fix so another bag of beans it is!!!
Monotreme – at 23:09 “With more human cases of bird flu being reported in the country, ministers warn the virus may be mutating into a more virulent form that is capable of being transmitted from human to human.” This virus is already so virulent. Are these ministers folks with a science background or are they just politicians who don’t know what that quote really means?
when do facts add up to logical conclusions. Helps a great deal if those who we have left in charge aren’t asleep at the wheel. Or takeing the steps required of them by those who’s interest are not the same as the greater community. If this does become a pandemic, Will those who survive be as tolerant of such motivations. Or us for tolerating such incompitence when we should not have surrendered to it?. Sorry but this makeing me both angry and scared. Just shouldn’t play the odd’s when so many lives are at stake for such short term gains, And act as if your owed some value as a public protection service. At what point do these people {Gverment health orginizations} start acting like concerned humans?. When they have no other choice?.
I stumbled across this, and it occurred to me I’d never seen it before….has anyone else? (Note: document is from 1996)
Link to document - http://tinyurl.com/q2uac
“A suspected epidemic of unknown etiology was investigated in April/May 1996 in the remote jungle highlands of easternmost Indonesia. Trend analysis demonstrates the area-wide occurrence of a major respiratory infection outbreak in November 1995 through February 1996. The monthly mean rate of respiratory infection episodes for the peak outbreak months (2,477 episodes/100,000 persons) was significantly higher (P › .0001) than for the 34 months leading up to the outbreak (109 episodes/100,000 persons). Notable were the high attack rates, particularly among adults: 202 episodes/1,000 persons aged 20–50 years in one community. Excess morbidity attributed to the outbreak was an estimated 4,338 episodes. The overall case-fatality rate was 15.1% of outbreak cases. Laboratory evidence confirmed the circulation of influenza A/Taiwan/1/86–like viruses in the study population, and high hemagglutination inhibition titer responses were indicative of recent infections. Historical documents from neighboring Papua New Guinea highlight the role of influenza A virus in repeated area outbreaks.”
If this has been posted before, my apologies.
Reading throught the above report(meaning the whole document), Although I’m hardly a expert. It looks like there was a serious outbreak in a isolated region, with a high attack and lethality rate that resembles our current H5N1 (similiar symptoms and abnormally high leathality among the healthy younger demographic), but adapted to humans(after a period of mixing with pigs) and occurring shortly before the original Hong Kong outbreak of H5N1.
Love to know if its been seen here before, and/or some thoughts on it from others? If it hasn’t been aired before, would this not be a excellent example of recent successful adaption to humans by a (presumably)Avian bug?
heh, sorry for above spelling errors, but its past 3 and I must get to bed…. looking forward to any responses.
Article on potential use of immunosuppresing chemotherapy http://www.newscientist.com/channel/health/dn8792.html
Oops, sorry, posted on wrong thread. Shame this board doesn’t have a delete post function.
Grimoire,
Get some sleep. Yes, we are seriously alarmed.
hehe, Thanks Melanie. I wasn’t as much alarmed as curious why this hasn’t surfaced before (to my knowledge), and wondered how people would factor it in.
I really don’t fully understand the significance of the article, but one thing that jumped out at me was that I had the Influenza A/Taiwan Flu in 1986. I remember the doctor told me that there was an extraordinarily high death rate among 20–30 year olds who caught the Taiwan flu that year. I have never been so sick in my life and it took me a good year to really fully recover. I was at the prime of my own life and health when I caught it.
Are you suggesting this strain is in some way related to H5N1?
No, In the document it mentions it is “like” that virus but ultimately it was not identified in this report.
related..though…I don’t know. It seemed to act in a similiar fashion though…but I wouldn’t be confident myself in interpreting it too precisely.
Good reporting Monotreme. For anyone who doesn’t frequent Curevents, a poster there named Bluejay has been doing an awesome job of tallying suspected and confirmed cases in Indonesia; my personal pick for ground zero.
It would be great if we could get a viral specialist to comment. The 1918 strain, the Influenza A/Taiwan/1/86 strain, the one mentioned in this article, and H5N1…what do they have in common? Could those who have had the Taiwan flu in 1986 or this related flu in 1996 have any immunity? Would this indicate that the H5N1 isn’t actually a completely new virus?
Anastasia, Agreed :)
So, any of you more scientifically-minded people have any comment to add to this?
(Noting document http://tinyurl.com/q2uac )
I’d hate to see this drop back into obscurity unless I know thats where it belongs…:P
bumped to try and bring it to the attention of those aforementioned scientifically-minded virology type people…
BUmp..ditto
I’m not a virologist but I did read the whole article and from what I read near the end it was not H5N1. It was some “other” stuff that did not interest me. Seems these people live in high altitudes with poor nutrition.
The charts that showed the spread of the infection looked similar to the stuff the people at Max Planck Institute (in another thread) just constructed suggesting that random walk and geometric expansion in an area may override the current wave theory.
Rereading the document, My take was a bit different… it seemed to state only he could not CONFIRM the cause at all, other than it was probably a Type A influenza strain, the testing performed was inconclusive of that. but all clinical signs pointed directly at it. (look at referred documentation he was using on the right). I don’t think it was H5N1 but it may have been related… as a side note, watching the dates…note that the hong kong outbreak of H5N1 occured a few months later…..
But my main points I was curious about is 1) How common is the avian flu really. 2)indonesia may have many people with avian flu defenses.. 3)This outbreak was considerably more lethal than the Hong Kong outbreak the next country over….(but very isolated) and made the jakarta papers at the time. but I’ve haven’t found anyone who saw this before….odd
Agreed it apears to be the “A” strain. Your other questions require the services of a qualified person as you requested. — sorry I can’t help
JoeW, No worries, and I appreciate your input very much :)
bumped
Thanks Grimoire for posting this interesting article and to Anastasia for bumping it up. I am neither a virologist or an epidemiologist, but I’ll put in my 2 cents for what’s worth.
They did not isolate the virus that caused the disease, so there is no way to be sure what it was. It appears to have been influenza A, and maybe was a H1N1 strain, but the data are not definitive. There are some resemblances between this outbreak and the H5N1 outbreaks, notably the young age of the victims and the high case fatality rate. However, there are also some significant differences. The patients described in this paper responded very well to antibiotics, suggesting that secondary bacterial infections were the main cause of mortality. This is not true with H5N1 patients. Death in H5N1 patients is due to viral pneumonia *not* bacterial pneumonia. The pig deaths are interesting, but no bird deaths were noted.
I suspect this was not H5N1, but who knows, whatever caused this outbreak might have “contributed” to H5N1. Influenza is very promiscuous. What I take from this is that the conditions in southeast asia, high human density, high poultry density, close contact between humans and animals have created a viral paradise. H5N1 isn’t the only dangerous virus brewing out there. Unless these conditions change, we can expect one nasty surprise after another.
I didn’t think it was H5N1, but it was definitely a nasty bug, and one presumes may still be floating around in there somewhere. wonder what kind of impact it’ll have with H5N1 becoming more prevalent in the area though. But, I suppose thats all conjecture.
Older thread, closing for speed purposes.
check dates