1st Human Bird Flu Case Confirmed In Indonesia

[hatrack]

JAKARTA, Indonesia — "An Indonesian poultry worker has tested positive for bird flu, in the country's first human case of the disease that has so far killed 54 people in Southeast Asia, health officials said Thursday.

The worker on the island of Sulawesi is showing no symptoms of the disease, but blood tests show he was exposed to the H5N1 strain of the disease and has produced antibodies to it, said Hariadi Wibisono, director for the eradication of diseases transmitted by animals at the health ministry. "This is the first case found," Dr. Georg Petersen, WHO's representative in Indonesia, told The Associated Press.

The bird virus has swept through poultry populations in large swaths of East and Southeast Asia. Tens of millions of chickens have either died or been slaughtered, while 38 people have died in Vietnam, 12 in Thailand and four from Cambodia since late 2003.

The Indonesian case is an ominous development in the global battle to prevent the bird flu strain from mutating into a form that passes easily between people and spawn a pandemic. Health experts have warned that Indonesia - which allocates only a tiny percentage of its gross domestic product to the health sector - may struggle to contain a major outbreak."

EDIT

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/APWires/health/D8AOHOQO0.html

[phantom power]

1. I wonder if there is anything we can do to control virus evolution

in birds and pigs, besides mass slaughers every time we detect a new outbreak. I guess that's preferable to a pandemic, but all those chickens and pigs are people's food supply and livelihood.

And I wonder why this doesn't happen in places like Delaware, where they raise chickens.