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Lisa Schnirring, staff writer for CIDRAP News, brings us a summary of what we know about the events surrounding the 17 patients recently isolated in South Sulawesi.
In this article she also highlights some of the work that the flu forum newshounds do; searching out and translating foreign language news reports on avian influenza, and other emerging infectious diseases.
Indonesia says no H5N1 cases in suspicious cluster
Lisa Schnirring
Staff Writer
Nov 20, 2008 (CIDRAP News) – Indonesia's health ministry has ruled out H5N1 avian influenza in a cluster of 17 suspected cases in South Sulawesi province, countering earlier reports of positive hospital and university tests, Reuters reported today.
According to an earlier report from the Jakarta Post, the patients—all from Sudiang subdistrict and most of them children—were hospitalized in Makassar with symptoms that resembled avian influenza infection. A hospital source had said rapid tests indicated the H5N1 virus and that officials were awaiting further test results from Hasanuddin University.
A Nov 14 Reuters update on the suspected case cluster quoted Chandra Yoga Adhitama, the health ministry's acting director of communicable disease control, as saying the patients were hospitalized as a precaution after chickens died in the area. He also told Reuters that the patients' conditions were generally good and that their samples would be sent to Jakarta for testing at the health ministry's laboratory.
Then on Nov 15, the Post reported that Halik Saleh, a spokesman for the hospital's avian flu team, said the university tests also indicated the patients had the H5N1 virus but that the hospital decided not to use either institution's test results and would instead wait for results from the health ministry.
Lily Sulistyowati, a health ministry spokeswoman, told Reuters today that the patients' tests were negative for H5N1. She gave no further details.
