Drishtikone
Just wanted to record this fact here on my blog.. the bird flu finally seems to be growing on into a human to human disease.. these are the first indications!
Health officials in Indonesia are still struggling to track down the source of a worrying family cluster of H5N1 bird flu infections as tests showed that two more people have died of the same disease.
One of the latest victims belonged to a Sumatran family, which lost several members earlier this month to bird flu, sparking fears of human-to-human transmission.
While H5N1 is still regarded as a bird disease, experts have warned for more than a year that it might mutate and pass efficiently between humans and cause a global pandemic.
“One man from the same Sumatra cluster died this morning. He is the father of the child who died on May 13. He ran away after he received Tamiflu,” said I Nyoman Kandun, director-general of communicable disease control at the health ministry.
“He was found in the village later but refused treatment,” Kandun told reporters at a news conference.
Five of his relatives have been confirmed as bird flu deaths by the World Health Organisation (WHO) which also says another family member has survived being infected with H5N1.
Another death could not be confirmed because no samples were obtained but she is considered the initial case of the cluster in Kubu Simbelang village in north Sumatra.
The woman died on May 4 but, nearly three weeks on, Indonesian experts have come no closer to finding the source of the virus.
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