# 1785
Overnight, a spate of local media reports have come out of Indonesia describing a possible outbreak of bird flu in a village in Lampung Province, on the southern tip of Sumatra.
These reports, mostly written in the Bahasan language and machine translated into English, can be difficult to decipher. Translation software is good, but hardly perfect. Nuances are often lost, and indeed, translation errors can occur. I'm always a little reluctant to rely too heavily on these reports. Caveat Lector.
This first local media report comes from The Lampung Post, and was translated by Commonground on Flutrackers.
While this report describes at least one patient suffering from `high fever, breathless, coughs, and outside blood from the nose since the last three days', it isn't clear what symptoms the others that have been isolated are exhibiting. Presumably flu-like symptoms of some sort.
The illness To Infect: 10 the Patient 'Suspect' Bird Flu was isolated
BANDAR LAMPUNG
The bird flu attack or avian influenza (AI) increasingly worrying.
Yesterday (12-3), ten residents of the Batu Suluh Village, Kelurahan Way Laga, of Panjang, was brought to RSU Abdul Moeloek (RSUAM) because of being expected terjangkit this illness.
Eight patients including being picked up by the team of the official of the health from his residence by the official of the Panjang Community Health Centre.
The 10 people then was treated in RSUAM isolation space.
The resident who it was suspected was attacked by AI experienced the high fever, breathless, coughs, and outside blood from the nose since the last three days.
In the meantime, had a basis in results of the official's inspection, the poultry there positive was attacked by bird flu.
Because, the official suspected them of being attacked by AI (suspect AI).
"Results" of the "inspection, the chicken livestock was belonging to the positive resident attacked by bird flu," said the Topic (29), the official of the Panjang Community Health Centre, when accompanying the patient to RSUAM, yesterday afternoon.
Initially, only two patients were reconciled to RSUAM from the Panjang Community Health Centre, that is Santibi (43) and his child, Imas Supriana (10).
After hearing this news, the official of the health descended to Way Laga, Panjang.
There, the official picked up eight residents who it was suspected were attacked by AI by the ambulance.
They were the brother's two older brothers Sutihat (8 ) and Ahmad Dani (8 months); the father and the child, Nurdin (52) and Hariyanto (11); afterwards Aminah (20), Febi (2), Karniti (42), and Lala (20).
All of them could take medicine to the community health centre -- except Karniti and Lala -- but refused to be reconciled and immediately came home.
Lampung Province has recently been the focus of some press reports regarding outbreaks of bird flu among poultry. Of course, in Indonesia, poultry deaths from bird flu are common, and not every outbreak gets reported. The number of outbreaks in Lampung, however, apparently were great enough to attract some attention.
One such article comes from the Seputar-Indonesia website, and was translated by Influentia2 on the Flu Wiki.
Kamis, 13/03/2008
The spreading of the bird flu illness in Lampung spread.
Totalling 25 villages in 13 subdistricts has terjangkit this illness.
From 346 villages in Lampung Timur, 21 villages among them the flu danger burung.Desa this was in 13 subdistricts, the Kesehatan broad headword of the Animal of Dinas Peternakan Kabupaten Lampung Timur Dewanto yesterday.
He recorded thousands of poultries in this area died was stated positive because of bird flu.
Flu-like symptoms, combined with recent poultry deaths, are enough to send up red flags. When between 8 and 10 people from the same village exhibit symptoms, it gets everyone's attention.
The reports coming in vary in the exact number of people in isolation. Two suspect patients apparently refused to be transported to the hospital, and two more appear to have bolted from the hospital overnight.
This from okezone.com, originally posted by Dutchy on Flutrackers and translated by Ironorehopper.
2 patients Suspek Flu Burung Kabur from RS
On Thursday, March 13 2008 -
Jakarta - ten residents Way Laga, Panjang, of Banda Lampung, was isolated in the Public Hospital of Abdul Muluk because of being expected suffered avian influenza (AI) or bird flu.
Ten people were carried from their respective residence on Wednesday March 12, in the afternoon yesterday.
They at once got the standard of the maintenance for the patients suspek bird flu.
The ten patients were treated on the Long community health centre recommendation.
The existence of the assumption of bird flu, because apart from the sign that was suffered by the patient resembled AI, also the existence of the story of the death of the positive poultry was contracted by AI in their village.
From the patient suspek AI this, five including being children.
They were
*Sanpidi (43) and
-- his child of Imas (10),
-- the older brother was siblings Adi Sutihat (8) and
-- Dani (8 months),* Nurdin (52) and
-- his child of Hariyanto (11),
-- Aminah (20),
-- Fedi (2),
- Aniti (42),
- Lala (20).
However, from ten patients suspek bird flu, two among them Aniti and Lala refused to be treated in the hospital.
Now two other, Sanpidi and Imas on Wednesday night bolted from the hospital, around struck 21,30 WIB.
According to the official RSU Abdul Muluk, on Thursday (13/2/2008), overnight already did not find the father and this child in isolation space for the sufferers or suspek bird flu.
Thousands of dead chickens, two families isolated from the same village, two . . .or possibly four, now refusing isolation and potentially spreading the virus . . . all very dramatic . . . and all worrisome . . . assuming these people really have been infected with the H5N1 bird flu virus.
But of course, we don't know that yet. This could all turn out to be a false alarm.
There are a great many viral illnesses that can mimic bird flu. Indonesians cope with Dengue, Chikungunya, various and sundry viral fevers, and seasonal influenza. Until the tests come back, the evidence here for avian flu is circumstantial.
You can be sure that there are dozens of dedicated Internet newshounds working furiously to bring us the latest news. They gather together and parse these translations, using their good judgement and extensive experience, to give us the best possible interpretation of these news reports.
I am frankly in awe of their ability to make sense out of some of these translations. When I spend too much time reading Toggletexted translations, my eyes tend to glaze over. Kudos to each and every one of these talented souls that are working to bring us the news.
Obviously this outbreak will get a lot of scrutiny over the next couple of days. We will watch to see if the number of cases increase, and will have to wait on test results.
It could be a long weekend.
