Tamiflu Blanket Applied to Island Villages in South Sumatra
Recombinomics Commentary
September 5, 2007
At the separate site Tanggamus Iman Sumarjo health agency head has distributed Tamiflu medicine (bird flu medicine deterrent) for free to all the residents in two villages especially those neighborhoods with dead chickens, the administration has continued to do so that every resident gets 10 tablets point Tamiflu medicine, said Faith.
The above translation describes the implementation of a Tamiflu (oseltamivir) blanket for residents of two villages on the island of Palua Tabuan off the coast of southern Sumatra. Thousands of chickens have died with bird flu symptoms and over 100 villagers have been hospitalized with a mysterious illness. Although the illness has been official diagnosed as typhoid fever, the chicken deaths and implementation of a Tamiflu blanket raise serious questions about the true diagnosis for the hospitalized and treated patients.
The number of deaths has been small, producing a case fatality rate far below the levels in confirmed H5N1 cases in Indonesia, but the chicken deaths suggest that some or most of these patients may in fact be H5N1 cases.
Earlier a cluster in southern Sumatra was mild, and the H5N1 confirmed patients were initially diagnosed with typhoid fever. All three members of the cluster survived as described in the New England Journal of Medicine. paper on human-to-human transmission of H5N1 in Indonesia
Thus, the patients on the island in southern Sumatra could represent mild cases of H5N1.
More information on H5N1 testing of the patients and poultry would be useful.
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