Third Confirmed H5N1 Patient in Garut Cluster
Recombinomics Commentary
August 19, 2006
Santi and Ismayati, but his specimen was negative. "Sometimes the virus just emerged in the third day," explained Siti.
Apart from the three patients, beforehand three other patients have been ascertained terjangkit bird flu.
One of them Umar, the citizen of the Rancasalak Village, Cikelet. While Siti Fatimah and Euslina have died
The above translation indicates Eusina has tested positive for H5N1 bird flu, which increases the likelihood that her 9 year-old daughter0 Dea,, who had bird flu symptoms but was diagnosed as typhoid, also died of an H5N1 infection.
Similarly, Umar's cousin(20M) also died of H5N1 bird flu symptoms, but was not tested because samples were not taken.
The two children testing negative are probably also infected because they were hospitalized with pneumonia and one was the cousin of Siti Fatima and the other was a neighbor/playmate, and both attended her funeral (and one media report indicated Santi was positive.
Thus, each of the three confirmed positives are linked to relatives who are dead or hospitalized after showing bird flu symptoms. These data indicate the H5N1 in Garut is becoming more efficiently transferred to humans, resulting in multiple foci and spread to additional contacts.
The data also highlights the number of cases that would have been missed if there was not a cluster. Three patients died without being tested. One wasn't tested because of a diagnosis of a fatal typhoid fever, and two additional suspect patients have tested negative in initial tests.
Thus, the number of H5N1 individuals is markedly higher than official confirmed cases, and more testing of people and animal sources, including the dogs who were fed the dead chickens in Garut, are indicated.
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