Confusion and Worry in Indonesia

Something ominous is going on in Indonesia. Again. Last May we saw limited Human to Human (H2H) transmission of the virus among 8 family members in the Karo district. Thankfully, that clustered died with the family. It did not spread. We dodged a bullet.

Now, we are hearing of a cluster of cases in the Garut Regency of Indonesia, and while details are sketchy, it appears to involve 11 patients, all sickened (some have died) in the past 10 days. Much of the information we are receiving is thru local news media, and translation difficulties (and inexact reporting) make the interpretation of these reports problematic.

The Flubie community has its ears perked up right now. Flu forums are trying to put these reports into some sort of sequence that makes sense. It’s not an easy job. For those who desire to keep up with the latest, allow me to suggest you monitor the news threads at Plan For Pandemic. If you don’t already belong to this excellent flu forum, now would be an excellent time to sign up.

As the details coming out of Indonesia are still unclear, I won’t go into details about the cases. But it does appear to be a developing, and potentially serious, situation. We will hopefully know more by the first of the week. Weekends have been historically a black hole for information.

This cluster could peter out, just like the Karo Cluster. Maybe we will get lucky again. I’ve seen too many of these flash fires burn themselves out to get too excited yet.

But it is probably inevitable that one of these days; a small brush fire outbreak will expand into a viral conflagration.

So Indonesia bears watching. And yes, worrying about.