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JAKARTA (AFP) - Indonesia's confirmed bird flu death toll has
risen to 11 amid worrying new evidence that the virus may be
developing resistance to Tamiflu, the only drug known to be
effective against it.
A 39-year-old man and an eight-year-old boy were the country's
latest victims of the H5N1 strain of the virus, a hospital
spokesman said.
"It's been confirmed. We were informed of the results this
morning," Ilham Patu, a spokesman for Sulianti Saroso hospital,
Indonesia's main centre for the treatment of bird flu, told AFP
Thursday.
Indonesia, the world's fourth most populous nation, routinely
sends samples of cases that test positive locally abroad for
verification.
The man, a resident of South Jakarta, died on December 13, a day
after being admitted to the hospital.
The boy died two days later at a private hospital in Jakarta.
Health ministry official Hariyadi Wibisono told AFP the test
results were from the Centers for Disease Control in the United
States and not from a World Health Organization-linked
laboratory in Hong Kong, as Patu said earlier.
Asked about the contradictory information, Patu said: "My
information was obtained from the health ministry's research and
development center. But in any case, it's confirmed."
Most victims in Indonesia have come |
from densely-populated Jakarta, where many people still live in
close proximity to poultry, providing ideal conditions for the
virus to pass to humans.
Hundreds of officials and veterinary students began visiting
houses across the capital Thursday, looking for sick poultry as
part of a nationwide campaign to fight the disease, said
agriculture ministry official Makmur.
"The surveillance is aimed at monitoring poultry that may be
infected with bird flu," he said, adding that the students were
trained last month by experts from the UN Food and Agriculture
Organization.
In Vietnam, bird flu had become resistant to the anti-viral drug
Tamiflu in two fatal cases, a doctor said in what he called a
worrying development.
Tamiflu is considered a frontline defense against bird flu and
the most effective treatment available to counter the H5N1
strain.
Menno de Jong, from the Institute of Tropical Diseases in
southern Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh City, said Tamiflu was
ineffective in fighting the virus in two girls who died despite
being given full doses of the drug.
"Our two patients became resistant despite a full dose of
treatment. Both died and in one patient there are some
suggestions that the therapeutic failure and ultimately her
death may have been caused by the development of resistance," he
told AFP. |
This patient was a 13-year-old, who died eight days after
showing the first symptoms. The other, 18, died three weeks
after the onset of symptoms.
"What will be important is to try to learn as much as possible
from the next patients. We need to improve treatment of bird flu
in this region," he said.
Vietnam has been the country hardest hit by bird flu, which has
killed more than 70 people across Asia.
In China state media reported that human trials of a bird flu
vaccine had begun this week, with six volunteers being given
shots.
The experiments, which will be carried out on 120 volunteers in
Beijing, will last nine months but preliminary conclusions are
expected in around three months.
Various companies around the world are trying to develop a
vaccine against the virus.
But the WHO's top official in China has said that they might be
useless in the event of a pandemic because the virus would have
mutated.
Scientists fear that H5N1 may mutate into a form that could be
easily passed between humans, sparking a pandemic with a
potential global death toll of millions. |
