Another Fatal H5N1 Bali Case
Recombinomics Commentary
August 21, 2007
Ayu Srinadi, a chicken trader of Batugaing village in Kediri, Tabanan regency, around 20 kilometers west of capital city of Denpasar, died around 2 p.m. local time, after suffering high fever and acute pneumonia for not more than a week.
Sanglah Hospital's head of bird flu control unit Putu Andrika said Ayu had the same symptoms like that of Sri Widiantari, a 29-year-old woman from Negara of the island's most western part Jembrana regency, who died last week of bird flu.
"Ayu came here with pneumonia and high fever. Her condition was similar to Sri Widiantari's and we highly suspected her of having avian influenza," Putu said.
An Indonesian Health Ministry staffer, who did not want to be named, told AAP that preliminary test results indicated the woman had the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu.
The above comments strongly suggest that a third H5N1 case on Bali has died. The first case (5F) died August 3. Although she was not tested for H5N1, her mother (29F) had symptoms shortly after her death and the mother, who died August 12, was H5N1 confirmed, as was the family's poultry.
The latest case, who died August 21, also had symptoms and tested positive in local tests. These three fatal cases this month in Bali are cause for concern.
Previously, no confirmed human cases were reported on Bali, although H5N1 was confirmed in poultry on Bali as early as 2004. The latest cases are cause for concern because the disease onset days strongly suggest that the index case infected her mother, and there has been no dead poultry link to the most recent case.
More information on the sequence of the H5N1 from these cases would be useful.
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