Word: h5n1
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...rural nation - and a zone free of human cases of avian influenza in the nation that has recorded the most bird flu infections in the world. But Bali is bird flu free no longer. Today the World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed the death of a young Balinese woman from H5N1 avian flu, the second case on the island in less than a month. Although Indonesian and WHO officials were quick to note that there was nothing clinically unusual about the Bali deaths - both victims apparently contracted the virus from infected poultry - the presence of human bird flu cases...
...Indonesian government was worried enough about the Bali cases to do something it hasn't done in months: share H5N1 virus samples with the WHO. Under new international health regulations that went into effect in June, all countries are supposed to share virus samples of dangerous diseases like bird flu with the WHO, to help international scientists track contagion - and in the case of the flu, formulate possible vaccines. Since the end of last year, however, Indonesia has refused to share samples, claiming that international drug companies were using Indonesian H5N1 strains to produce vaccines, which they would then sell...
That's good news, considering that the U.S. has purchased only 26 million doses of the newly licensed H5N1 flu vaccines, enough to cover 13 million people in the event of a pandemic -but there's no guarantee that H5N1 will even be the bug in question. In 1918 the Spanish flu infected 20% of the world's population and killed 40 million people (a mortality rate of 2.5%), and 550,000 of those deaths were in the U.S. What the new study illuminates is the small print behind that big number: some cities got hit much harder than others...
Public-health experts around the world share Hadiat's anxiety. The H5N1 strain of avian influenza, also known as bird flu, has been jumping from birds to people for years. The fear is that if bird flu manages to combine with a strain of human influenza and form a superstrain that easily spreads from person to person, it could threaten the lives of millions. Preventing a pandemic thus depends on tracking and controlling infected poultry, and nowhere is that challenge more daunting than in Indonesia. Home to 234 million people and 1.3 billion poultry, it has recorded more human deaths...
...That doesn't mean the fight is meaningless. International experts need to have samples in lab to fully analyze the behavior and genetic structure of the bird flu virus, looking for the all-important mutation that might mean H5N1 is ready to go pandemic. (Currently H5N1 only rarely infects human beings, but flu viruses change constantly - hence the need for up-to-date analysis.) Since Indonesia is where most new human bird flu cases have been occurring - as one Jakarta official acknowledged with a twist of pride, "We do have the most deadly virus" - scientists need to see Indonesian samples...