Fifth member of a family dies of bird flu, local tests find
JAKARTA (AP): A fifth member of an Indonesian family has died of bird flu, according to local tests, a senior medical official said Sunday.
The five are part of a large family in Tanah Karo village on Sumatra island in which eight people are suspected to have contracted the virulent H5N1 bird flu virus. Four died from the disease earlier this past week, according to local tests, and a fifth was confirmed on Sunday, said Nyoman Kandun, head of theHealth Ministry’s office of communicable disease control.
He said doctors currently could not reveal the gender of the fifth fatality.
“We are still in the meeting discussing this matter,” he said.
He said samples from the patients have been sent to a World Health Organization-accredited lab in Hong Kong for confirmation.
Webmaster note:
The part that worries experts is information shows the only contact any family member had with fowl was when they ate cooked chicken. Which means there is a very high probability either the bird flu virus has mutated into a human to human transferable strain, or local information about the family isn’t correct.
One other possibility does exist, if the family undercooked the chicken and the chicken itself was infected with the avian influenza virus, they could, according to recent information (located here), have caught the disease through their stomachs.
Sources used in the Avian influenza story: