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01/11/08 10:43
Indonesia confirms another bird flu
<!-- google_ad_section_start -->Jakarta (ANTARA News) - A 16-year-old girl from the outskirts of the Indonesian capital has been hospitalised after becoming infected with the bird flu virus, an official at the health ministry said Friday.
The girl is being treated in a Jakarta hospital for the deadly disease, which has claimed 94 lives in Indonesia, the highest number of any nation. The teenager is the 117th confirmed case here, where the disease is now endemic.
"Two laboratory tests confirmed that she is infected with the bird flu virus," Joko Suyono, an official at the ministry's bird flu centre, told AFP.
Two positive results of tests on blood and tissue samples from a victim are needed before Indonesian authorities confirm a bird flu infection.
The girl, who is from the satellite city of Bekasi, was first admitted to a private hospital there on January 4, four days after she began to feel ill. She was referred to the Jakarta hospital on January 10.
"She is still being treated in an intensive care unit but her condition is quite stable," Muchtar Ikhsan, a doctor treating her at Persahabatan hospital, told AFP.
"We are closely monitoring her condition," he added.
The bird flu centre's Suyono said that two months before she fell ill, several chickens in her neighbourhood had died suddenly.
"She also ate three eggs half-cooked two weeks before getting sick... The eggs might not have been washed properly before being cooked," he said, referring to the fact that chicken faeces, which can carry the virus, may have been on the shells.
But Suyono said that the health ministry had not yet confirmed whether the chickens in her neighbourhood had tested positive for the virus.
Humans are typically infected with bird flu by coming into direct contact with infected poultry, but experts fear the H5N1 virus may mutate into a form easily transmissible between humans.
The head of the world's top agency for animal health said on Thursday in Paris however that the virus has so far proved remarkably stable, which minimised the risk of mutation. (*)<!-- google_ad_section_end -->
Indonesia confirms another bird flu
<!-- google_ad_section_start -->Jakarta (ANTARA News) - A 16-year-old girl from the outskirts of the Indonesian capital has been hospitalised after becoming infected with the bird flu virus, an official at the health ministry said Friday.
The girl is being treated in a Jakarta hospital for the deadly disease, which has claimed 94 lives in Indonesia, the highest number of any nation. The teenager is the 117th confirmed case here, where the disease is now endemic.
"Two laboratory tests confirmed that she is infected with the bird flu virus," Joko Suyono, an official at the ministry's bird flu centre, told AFP.
Two positive results of tests on blood and tissue samples from a victim are needed before Indonesian authorities confirm a bird flu infection.
The girl, who is from the satellite city of Bekasi, was first admitted to a private hospital there on January 4, four days after she began to feel ill. She was referred to the Jakarta hospital on January 10.
"She is still being treated in an intensive care unit but her condition is quite stable," Muchtar Ikhsan, a doctor treating her at Persahabatan hospital, told AFP.
"We are closely monitoring her condition," he added.
The bird flu centre's Suyono said that two months before she fell ill, several chickens in her neighbourhood had died suddenly.
"She also ate three eggs half-cooked two weeks before getting sick... The eggs might not have been washed properly before being cooked," he said, referring to the fact that chicken faeces, which can carry the virus, may have been on the shells.
But Suyono said that the health ministry had not yet confirmed whether the chickens in her neighbourhood had tested positive for the virus.
Humans are typically infected with bird flu by coming into direct contact with infected poultry, but experts fear the H5N1 virus may mutate into a form easily transmissible between humans.
The head of the world's top agency for animal health said on Thursday in Paris however that the virus has so far proved remarkably stable, which minimised the risk of mutation. (*)<!-- google_ad_section_end -->
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