Wild Bird Linkage with H5N1 Positive Case in Jakarta
Recombinomics Commentary
February 6, 2007
In Indonesia, which has reported the most avian-flu deaths worldwide, the virus infected a man in his 30s and a 15-year-old girl, who may have gotten the virus from a wild bird, a health ministry official said today.
``She caught a wild bird near her home and it was reported the bird died two days later,'' said Joko Suyono, an official at the ministry's avian-flu information center. The girl was admitted to Jakarta's Persahabatan Hospital yesterday, five days after she developed flu-like symptoms, he said.
The above comments provide a link between a confirmed H5N1 case (15F) in Jakarta with a wild bird. The girl lived in an upscale neighborhood in Jakarta, and the failure to link the case to domestic poultry is similar to the circumstances surrounding first H5N1 cluster in Tangerang, adjacent to Jakarta.
The initial case in July, 2005 involved H5N1 with a novel cleavage site, RESRRKKR. In all but one human isolate on Java, including sequences reported for this year, the same cleavage site has been reported. Attempts to link this novel cleavage site and associated changes in all 8 gene segments has had limited success.
Last fall 91 H5N1 positive poultry samples were sent to a WHO affiliated lab in Australia. Approximately 50 sequences were made public, and only three had the novel cleavage site. Two were from chickens on Sumatra. The only bird sample from Java was from a duck in Indramayu, isolated a year ago. However, this sequence was similar to a small subset of human cases. The vast majority of human isolates, include those from Indramayu, were distinct. Those sequences matched each other, as well as a cat sequence from Indramayu.
The failure to match the human sequences to additional bird isolates is likely linked to limited testing of other sources of H5N1. Recent media reports describe H5N1 sequences or antibodies in dogs and cats in Bali. H5N1 sequences from wild birds in Indonesia have not been reported.
Thus, although human H5N1 sequences have been reported in Indonesia since July, 2005, there have been no matches between a human isolate and a nearby bird isolate, although the death of nearby poultry is frequently cited in WHO updates on confirmed human cases.
The isolation and sequencing of H5N1 from wild birds in Indonesia would be useful.
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