Indonesia ties Vietnam for most bird flu deaths

Indonesia has now done in one year what it took Vietnam three years to "accomplish": rack up 42 deaths from bird flu . Indonesia and Vietnam are now tied for the most number of deaths from the disease, although Indonesia did it with fewer cases, a reflection of the fact the case fatality ratio in Indonesia is 78% (42/54), while in Vietnam it is 45% (42/93).

The latest case is a 44 year old male who died on July 12 after being hospitalized with fever and respiratory difficulties of two days duration. He lived in a Jakarta suburb and was "reported to have had contact with birds." Whether this is a fact or just the boilerplate reporting from the highly suspect Indonesian Ministry of Health we don't know. The diagnosis of H5N1 was made via "local tests," which means it needs to be confirmed by a WHO reference laboratory. "Local tests," though, are usually reliable. They are either done by one or both of an Indonesian laboratory at their national institute of health or by the US Navy NAMRU2 laboratory in Jakarta. The isolate is sent on to Malik Peiris's laboratory in Honk Kong if from the Indon lab or to CDC if from NAMRU2. Both are WHO reference laboratories. Once confirmed at one of those places the case will be entered into the official WHO tally.

Don't hold your breath to see the sequences anytime soon, however. But that's another story.

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I hate to sound cynical, but I have to ask if there isn't going to be a greater discrepancy between reported deaths from Indonesia and WHO in the future.

I seem to recall that Indonesia asked for $900 million in grants from the World Bank. The donor countries were more inclinded toward $200 million in low interest loans.

Then, the Indonesian government discussed giving individual farmer's low interest loans to cover their own(farmers) 'culling' costs.

Could it be that the Indonesian government is actually wanting to increase the reported death figure (but, not by actually causing them) in order to put more pressure on financial instituions to give Indonesia the deal they want?

By Snicklefritz (not verified) on 17 Jul 2006 #permalink

Snickle: The "local tests" are carried out by competent labs, either the Indon NIH lab or NAMRU2, and in almost every case they have been confirmed by WHO reference laboratories.

A recent turn of events in Thailand shows just how much self serving disinformation is being put out by governments re bird flu and how little we can trust them.

Last week a Thai official who was leaving office accused others in the health ministry of covering up a new outbreak of flu in the Phichit area. His accusations were vehemently denounced by the Thai govt, claiming the chickens all died of cholera and saying that they could not and would not lie to the WHO people monitoring bird flu in their country. Same day, the Thai government also put out their economic indicators report, claiming they expected a 30% increase in poultry exports in the upcoming year. How rosy.

Suddenly today they have put that same suspect area on a bird flu alert, and reported 7 new suspected cases of human avian influenza. Ooops, my bad? No, outright lies IMO. (see today's www. birdflubreaking news.com for link to story)

Not only can we not trust governments to give us accurate and timely information, it appears that WHO does not really have much control over the lies they publish in the interim either...until cases are confirmed at least. In the meantime the common people are left with scant, no or false information upon which to base actions upon which their very survival may depend.

By mary in hawaii (not verified) on 19 Jul 2006 #permalink

Avian influenza situation in Indonesia update 23 -- 20 July 2006 http://www.who.int/csr/don/2006_07_20/en/index.html

"The Ministry of Health in Indonesia has confirmed the countrys 54th case of human infection with the H5N1 avian influenza virus.

The case, which was fatal, occurred in a 44-year-old man from East Jakarta, Jakarta Province. He developed symptoms on 24 June, was hospitalized on 10 July, and died on 12 July.

The case may have acquired the infection from poultry around his home and animal health authorities have taken samples for testing. Another potential source of infection was a local wet market, which he regularly visited during the course of his work as the owner of a food stall. ..."

ugis: Yes, this is the WHO confirmation of the case (CDC lab, I believe, so it was locally tested by NAMRU2).