2 more bird flu deaths confirmed
2 more bird flu deaths confirmed
Agence France-Presse, Jakarta
Indonesia's 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.
Test results from a World Health Organization-affiliated
laboratory in Hong Kong showed on Thursday that a 39-year-old
Indonesian man and an eight-year-old boy were the country's
latest victims of the H5N1 strain of the virus.
"It's been confirmed. We were informed of the results this
morning," Ilham Patu, a spokesman for Sulianti Saroso hospital,
the main center here for the treatment of bird flu, told AFP.
The country routinely sends samples of cases that test
positive locally to Hong Kong for verification.
The man, a resident of South Jakarta, died on Dec. 13, a day
after being admitted to the hospital, while the boy died two days
later at a private hospital in Jakarta.
Most victims 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 on Thursday, looking for sick poultry
as part of a nationwide campaign to fight the disease,
agriculture ministry official Makmur said.
"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.
Meanwhile in Vietnam, bird flu has become resistant to the
antiviral drug Tamiflu in two fatal cases, a doctor said in what
he described as 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.