# 2239
A week ago ProMED mail, the global electronic reporting system for the International Society for Infectious Diseases, announced that due to the inability to confirm H5N1 case reports coming out of Indonesia, they would no longer carry reports of `suspected cases'.
ProMED Mail made the following editorial policy announcement on August 10th:
Until further notice, ProMED-mail will not report suspected human cases of avian influenza in Indonesia until they have been confirmed by the Indonesian Ministry of Health.
Following a week of public comment, most of which urged that ProMED continue to report on suspect cases (read excerpts here), ProMED has reversed their decision with this announcement today.
ProMED-mail conclusions
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ProMED's motive in seeking to screen out unsubstantiated reports of suspected human cases of H5N1 avian influenza from Indonesia was simply to avoid creating alarm and despondency.
ProMED-mail has now decided to report all suspected human cases of H5N1 from Indonesia because the usual flow of information -- first suspect and then confirmation -- is disrupted there because of their public health policy.
In countries where the standard flow is working properly, it is counterproductive to report suspects because many of them will not be confirmed as positive, thereby causing undue alarm. Over time, this could have the effect of "crying wolf" (repeated false alarms leading to a true alarm being ignored). - Mods.ProMED-mail
While I understood some of the difficulties ProMED editors felt they faced printing suspect cases, I applaud their decision to resume reporting these cases.
