Note: This story is updated HERE
# 5904
We’ve a story today in the Bali Post that, quite frankly, is reminiscent of some of the chaotic bird flu reports we saw coming out of Indonesia during the years 2006 and 2007.
The mother of the two children who died last week (see Bird Flu Claims Two Lives On Bali) has apparently now fallen ill (diagnosis unknown, but bird flu is suspected), and has fled the hospital where she was being examined.
Treyfish on FluTrackers has picked up the story (as has History Lover on The Flu Wiki).
What follows is a machine translation from Bahasan language news report. These translations often confuse gender (he vs she), and sometimes produce garbled, difficult to decipher syntax.
Nonetheless, the overall meaning of this report is pretty easy to grasp.
October 17, 2011 | BP
Treated in hospital Bangli
Fleeing Mother Bird Flu Victim
Bangli (Bali Post): Ni Wayan Purnami, the mother of I Wayan Aldiawan (10) and Ni Kadek Ariani Rini who both died of bird flu last Saturday (15/10) left RS Bangli in the night.
A residents of Antugan, Tembuku, Bangli, she had fled the hospital ER trauma from the grounds that are in the hospital. In fact, it is said the mother is still fitted with a drip.
According to information from the hospital on Sunday, Purnami's hospitalization in Bangli began Saturday. She is suspected of contracting bird flu. Therefore since there is a history in her family of those who contracted bird flu and her temperature is still high, then the hospital plans to refer her to the hospital Bangli Sanglah.
The patient was received at the hospital emergency room in Bangli. Although intravenous fluids have been installed in her hand, Purnami not want to lie down in the ER treatment room Bangli. In fact, she secretly left the room and was about to escape. But the effort was successfully prevented by security guards.
The story goes on to say that the woman made a second, successful bid to leave the hospital. She was eventually tracked to a private home, but attempts to get her to return to the hospital for treatment have thus far failed.
She apparently is insisting on being treated by a local `Shaman’, or medicine man.
This isn’t the first time that an Indonesian bird flu patient has refused treatment and left the hospital against medical advice.
Given the abysmal success rate for bird flu cases in Indonesian hospitals (only about 17% have survived), many locals believe their chances are better with purveyors of traditional medicine.
Jones Ginting, the sole survivor of the infamous Karo Cluster in 2006 – which killed 7 members of his family - was one who gained notoriety by fleeing the hospital in search of a Shaman.
Although he was eventually returned to Adam Malik Hospital, he refused oxygen, IV fluids, Tamiflu and would not allow blood to be drawn for testing.
Eventually, he ended up on a ventilator.
As his condition continued to deteriorate, a deal was finally struck with his relatives to allow limited hospital treatment in exchange for allowing a local witch doctor to visit, and treat him, in the hospital.
You can read the Associated Press account of his illness, and survival HERE. And the whole story is well told in Alan Sipress’s terrific "The Fatal Strain: On the Trail of Avian Flu and the Coming Pandemic".
Although the circumstances are admittedly suspicious, we don’t know yet if the mother is infected with the bird flu virus. There are other illnesses common in Indonesia that could produce bird-flu-like symptoms.
For now, she is simply a suspect case.
We’ll have to wait for lab tests (assuming enough blood was drawn) to know for sure.
If they should prove positive for the virus, the next step will be to determine the route of infection and if secondary transmission of the virus occurred.
In the meantime, you can find fresh reports this story on this FluTrackers Thread and in the Indonesian thread on the Flu Wiki.
