"Indonesia on high alert over avian flu"

CIDRAP (The University of Minnesota's Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy) news alert September 19, 2005.

"Indonesia was on high alert over H5N1 avian influenza today, with at least two children hospitalized with suspected cases and Jakarta's zoo closed because of infected birds."

The question is whether Indonesia will have the will and the administrative capacity to destroy domestic poultry that might spread the zoonosis and lead to a human epidemic! The article goes also states:

" Four deaths in Indonesia have been attributed to H5N1 avian flu so far, including the 37-year-old woman and a 38-year-old man and his two young daughters who died in July. But the World Health Organization (WHO) recognizes just one case, that of the 38-year-old man, as laboratory-confirmed......

"The anxiety in Indonesia comes amid increasingly urgent warnings from the WHO that H5N1 virus is likely to trigger a human flu pandemic. WHO Director General Lee Jong-Wook issued another warning at the annual conference of WHO's Western Pacific Regional Committee today on New Caledonia in the South Pacific.

"'The only condition missing is the emergence of a virus that is capable of rapid transmission among humans,' Lee said, as quoted by Reuters.

"In other news, the WHO said today that Vietnam has officially confirmed that a 35-year-old farmer who died Jul 31 had avian flu. His case had been reported by the news media in August. The WHO now says there have been 114 laboratory-confirmed cases of H5N1 avian flu, including 59 deaths, since December 2003. Vietnam has had 91 cases with 41 deaths, according to the WHO."