Some disturbing news in an itty-bitty
York Times article today. Follow me to the other side for some key points:
1. The Indonesian government is suppressing information about the extent of the disease and its spread among humans.
On Monday The Jakarta Post quoted several local health experts as saying that the government was not disclosing how widespread the disease was or how many times human-to-human transmission might have occurred.
2. The early diagnostic methods for traditional flu, which rely on upper respiratory tract sample - nose and throat swabs - don't work with avian flu. In other words, victims die before they're diagnosed.
Nose and throat swabs -- the routine way of diagnosing regular flu -- may give false negatives because the bird flu virus attaches to cells deep in the lungs, not to the upper respiratory tract.
3. Here's the kicker: a significant number of health workers have died from avian flu.
There have been several reports of Indonesian nurses' falling sick after tending avian flu victims, which could indicate that the virus was spreading more easily between humans.
Add that all up: insufficient diagnostic methods, under-reported flu deaths, humans dying from the avian flu who, presumably, have had no contact with infected poultry.
It sounds like there's a lot of scary shit going on in Indonesia that we aren't hearing about or that the medical world simply doesn't understand. Or maybe the New York Times is simply being alarmist. I've tried to locate and link to the original Jakarta Post article, but without success.
(If this is old news, let me know and I'll delete)