The Jakarta Post offers an English version of the report of 17 ill in South Sulawesi Indonesia.
17 in hospital with suspected bird flu [excerpt]
A South Sulawesi hospital was overwhelmed as it admitted in two days 17 patients believed to have bird flu, an official said Thursday.
The patients, mostly children, presented with symptoms of the disease, such as a high fever, cough and respiratory problems, spokesman for Wahidin Sudirohusodo General Hospital in Makassar, Andi Kurnia Bintang, said.
Kurnia said the first patient, 5-year-old Salman, was hospitalized Wednesday morning, followed in the evening by his siblings Nurul Awaliah, 3, and Nur Fadillah, four months old, and four neighbors.
He said the patients, all residents of Sudiang subdistrict in Biringkanaya district, Makassar, were brought to the hospital after suffering a high fever for about two days.
“According to Salman’s parents, 27 chickens belonging to their neighbors died on Nov. 7. In the two days after that, their four chickens also died,” he said.
Kurnia said the hospital had conducted urgent tests for the first seven patients, with the results indicating the presence of the H5N1 avian influenza virus.
The hospital is waiting for confirmation of the results from blood tests conducted by the Micro Laboratory of the Hasanuddin University Medical School and the Visual Conversion Reaction, he said.
It is too early to know whether or not any of the 17 are actually infected with H5N1, and it would seem to be highly unlikely that all of them would be. However unlikely it would be, this is Indonesia, and Indonesia does have the distinction of being the country with the most human cases of H5N1.
Being located half-way around the world I can dispassionately sit here and think that regardless of whether any or all of these suspect cases are indeed positive for H5N1 based on serological testing, this is a good exercise for the Indonesians. Selfishly, I also have a small hope that Indonesian officials might re-think their stance on viral sample sharing because facing an outbreak of 17 without international goodwill might be a bit more “sobering” than facing one case “here and there”.
Has Indonesia’s opportunity to extract lucrative agreements from vaccine manufacturers evaporated in the current economic climate? Speculative investments, even by the most financially sound drug companies, would hardly seem to be likely for the foreseeable future, or at least until the world recovers from the current financial tough times.
Indonesia isn’t alone in the need to evaluate the likelihood of private industry investments for an unquantifiable future potential threat with an equally unquantifiable profitability in the current financial reality. Will research already in the pipeline suddenly lose funding?
With 17 suspect cases, though unlikely all are positive, we would do well to remember research and answers cost money as well as international goodwill and cooperative relationships.
Hopefully we will not have to wait too long for a definitive answer to these suspected cases – and hopefully that answer will be negative.
{ 0 comments… add one now }