# 605
It's very early in this story, and complicating matters are somewhat confusing local media reports, and the fact that this is Friday, the Moslem Sabbath, and official statements are hard to get out of Indonesia.
However, Xinhua news is reporting the following:
Indonesian doctor hospitalized for suspected bird flu
JAKARTA, March 30 (Xinhua) -- An Indonesian doctor who had treated a bird flu patient was hospitalized for developing bird flu symptoms in the West Java capital of Bandung, raising worries of human-to-human transfer of the deadly virus, local press said Friday.
The 29-year-old doctor with the Bandung's Hasan Sadikin Hospital has been isolated at the intensive care unit for bird flupatients since Thursday, and he had a history of contact with a bird flu patient who died last week at the same hospital, reported leading news website Detikcom.
His blood sample is now being examined at the Health Ministry's laboratory in Jakarta for confirmation.
Hasan Sadikin Hospital director Cissy Prawira said the hospital applies strict safety procedures in handling bird flu patients and requires all medical staff to wear protections like eyeglasses, masks and gloves.
"Up to now human-to-human transmission (of bird flu) remains a controversy due to the absence of proof," he was quoted as saying.
The hospital is now treating two other bird flu patients, including two children.
As near as I can tell, this doctor is from a different hospital than the 4 HCW's (Health Care Workers) mentioned in yesterday's blog that were febrile and were being checked for bird flu.
As ominous as all of this sounds, we need to wait until we have laboratory confirmation of H5N1 infection in these suspected cases before jumping to any conclusions.
Should any of these HCW's turn out to have contracted bird flu from close contact with a patient, it could indicate easier transmission of the virus. We've seen this before, and each time the chain of infection has stopped after only one or two patients.
It will likely take days, or perhaps a week or more, before we know if we are seeing anything beyond what we've already seen in the past.
As I said yesterday, this is something to keep an eye on.
