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Luh De Suriyani , The Jakarta Post , Denpasar | Mon, 09/07/2009 1:41 PM | Bali
The Sanglah Central Hospital in Bali has reported another death from the deadly H1N1 flu that has been spreading across Indonesia.
The hospital's attending physicians said Friday that Ni Wayan Siti, 19, died from the virus last Thursday night.
Siti was the latest fatal victim of the H1N1 flu, taking the nationwide death toll to six.
Laboratory results confirmed the young woman had contracted the H1N1 virus.
"We are still waiting for the results from the additional laboratory tests because there are indications that she had also contracted the H5N1 *avian flu* virus," the hospital's avian flu mitigation team secretary Ken Wirasandhi said Friday.
He said the patient had died from multiple organ failure.
In order to prevent the further spread of the virus, the hospital's team took over the duty of the victim's family to cleanse and wrap the deceased's body in a burial shroud.
"We also have specifically asked the family not to open the shroud to prevent any possible infection," he added.
The victim was a resident of Tampaksiring village in Gianyar regency.
She was admitted to Sanglah Central Hospital, the largest medical facility on the island, on Aug. 29, 2009.
She was eight months pregnant at the time.
However three days after she was admitted, her unborn baby died.
The attending physicians said the baby died from an oxygen deficiency.
Siti was having breathing difficulty at that time and apparently the condition affected her baby.
Separately, Bali health agency head I Nyoman Sutedja said he had yet to receive the laboratory results for Siti.
"I haven't received the official results yet. But, I have been informed the victim lived in close proximity to a fowl population and that some of those fowls had suddenly died recently," he said.
So far, the island's hospitals have treated a total of 83 individuals in H1N1-related cases, 42 of which were foreigners.
The resort island's health authority has never released official figures about the number of positive H1N1 cases, claiming that such authority lies with the Health Ministry in Jakarta.
By Aug. 23, the ministry recorded 57 new cases of H1N1 flu, taking the country's total number of confirmed cases to 1,005 in over 24 provinces across the country.
The director general of disease control and environmental health at the ministry, Tjandra Yoga Aditama, said the ministry was still taking all precautionary measures to prevent any further cases. The World Health Organization has confirmed hundreds of deaths globally from the H1N1 virus, which has spread to 160 countries, but health experts say the figure does not reflect the true number of people killed by the virus.
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2...life-bali.html
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