Saturday, October 13, 2007

Bird Flu Claims 12 Year-old Boy

 

# 1170

 

Although admitted to Persahabatan Hospital only 5 days ago, this junior high student first fell ill 2-weeks ago, and was initially treated at a local clinic. 

 

No details are provided for the time between that initial visit, and his hospitalization more than a week later.

 

Was he sent home from the clinic?   Was he quarantined?  How many people did he have contact with?  Are they now being tested?

 

 

 

 

Indonesian 12-year-old boy dies from bird flu

 

JAKARTA(AP): An Indonesian boy died from bird flu in the capital on Saturday, bringing the country's death toll from the virus to 88, the Health Ministry said.

 

The 12-year-old junior high school student from Tangerang, on Jakarta's southwestern outskirts, died after being treated for five days at Persahabatan Hospital - a designed bird-flu hospital in Jakarta - said Daswir Nurdin of the ministry's bird flu center.

 

"He was reported to have (had) contact with dead chickens close to his school," Nurdin said, adding that the boy first developed breathing problems and a fever on September 30 and initially visited a local clinic.

 

The boy was brought to Persahabatan on Tuesday, Nurdin said.

 

"His death raised Indonesia's death toll of bird flu to 88" deaths out of 109 cases, he said.

 

Indonesia has been hardest hit by the virus since it began ravaging poultry stocks across Asia in 2003. Its human death toll now accounts for almost half of the recorded 200 fatalities worldwide, according to the World Health Organization. (***)