Fourth Jakarta Area H5N1 Patient Confirmed
Recombinomics Commentary 12:11
January 28, 2008
A 23-year-old Indonesian woman from East Jakarta has died from bird flu, taking the country's death toll to 100, according to a report from Indonesia's bird flu information centre on Monday.
The above comments indicate the suspect H5N1 described earlier, was confirmed. Thus, four confirmed cases in the Jakarta area have been announced today. Two of the four have died.
The most recent confirmed case, like the 97th fatal case, lived near a slaughter house. The high cases fatality rate in Indonesia raises concerns that the number of infections is markedly higher than the number of confirmed cases.
Since there have now been two confirmed fatal cases who lived near slaughter houses in the Jakarta area, screening of workers for H5N1 antibodies may be a useful start for a more accurate determination of the incidence of H5N1 in people in the Jakarta area.
Testing of H5N1 in Indonesia has been suspect. Many patients are not tested until they are transferred to an infectious disease hospital, allowing many mild cases to be missed. In addition, application of a Tamiflu blanket may keep H5N1 levels below detection in mild cases.
More testing of suspect H5N1 in Indonesia would be useful.
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