| ■ Possible Human-to-Human Bird Flu Transmission in Indonesia | 06.09.29 |
| A possible cluster case of human-to-human transmission of the H5N1 bird flu virus is being investigated by Indonesian officials. The situation involves three brothers, ages 25, 20, and 15, who developed symptoms of bird flu. The oldest brother died Sunday, but was buried without any test samples taken from his body, Agence France Presse reported. The other two brothers are in a hospital that's a government-appointed center for treatment of bird-flu patients. "As the three are blood-related and suffer from the same symptoms, we are suspecting a new cluster case here, but we still have to make the necessary tests to ascertain what they are suffering from," Fatimah Resmiati, an official in the West Java health office, told AFP. Resmiati said the family regularly fed dead chickens to their dogs. This means the three brothers may have contracted the virus from poultry, rather than each other. Samples have been taken from the rest of the brothers' family and their close neighbors. Health experts say that cluster cases of human-to-human transmission increase the risk of the H5N1 virus mutating into a version that's easily transmitted between people, which could result in a global pandemic. ----- YahooHealth |