Keep Your Eye on Indonesia

While our attention has been rivited on Turkey and Iraq these past few weeks, reports from Indonesia continue to come in, indicating that Avian Flu is alive and well in that country.

JAKARTA (AFP): Indonesia, which has already registered 16 bird flu deaths, is awaiting test results from the World Health Organization (WHO) on 11 more suspected infections, a health official said Sunday.

"The latest report we have shows that there has been a total of 23 cases of confirmed infection, 16 of them fatal, while we are still awaiting the result of WHO tests on 11 other probable cases, four of them fatal," said an official at the health ministry's bird flu information center.

Meanwhile, Hong Kong is preparing to outlaw all home poultry raising as more and more H5N1 positive birds are found in the city. Many residents claim they will slaughter, and eat their birds before they will turn them over to the authorities.

The only news we have from Iraq is more than 3 days old. Supposedly 400,000 people in 50 villages are under `quarantine'. As there are language barriers, translation difficulties, a war going on, and obvious attempts to quell any panic, exactly what they mean by this is unclear.

This lack of news from Iraq has caused a great deal of speculation on the Internet. Rumors abound. Dispatches from sources claiming to be in the infected area are unverifiable, and therefore suspect. Afterall, anybody can write something and claim they are on the scene.

Still, it's disturbing. If there was good news, you'd think the authorities would be anxious to broadcast it.