#281
Overnight we're getting press reports of a 14 year old boy diagnosed wtih the H5N1 virus in Indonesia. Reports are thus far sketchy.
Sun Jan 7, 12:55 AM ET
JAKARTA (AFP) - A teenager undergoing hospital treatment in Indonesia has bird flu, the country's first confirmed case of the feared disease this year and its 75th overall, a senior health official has announced.
"A 14-year-old patient, still under treatment at the Persahabatan hospital, has been confirmed as being positively infected by the bird flu," government health official I Nyoman Kandun told AFP.
He said the boy was in poor health but declined to elaborate further.
"He is the 75th case of confirmed infection, 57 of whom died," Kandun said.
Indonesian officials last month optimistically pledged that 2007 would be a year free of Human deaths from the H5N1 virus. As unlikely as that promise is to be kept, we will hold hope this young man isn't the first one to break it.
Irrational optimism aside, Indonesian wildlife is rife with the virus, and a short lull in infections is no sign that the problem has gone away.
