# 2325
This year we've seen a steep decline in the number of human bird flu infections reported out of Indonesia. While we can argue over how accurate those numbers might be, we do know one thing:
The virus is still endemic in that nation, and human infections are still occurring.
The Jakarta Post today has an informative article today on the dangers of a pandemic.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008 7:53 PM
Bird flu cases down, but pandemic looms
Erwida Maulia , The Jakarta Post , Jakarta | Wed, 09/24/2008 10:46 AM | National
Indonesia must continue preparing for a bird flu pandemic, despite reports suggesting declines in cases of bird-to-human and bird-to-bird infections, health officials said Tuesday.
Erna Tresnaningsih, the Health Ministry's director for animal-vector diseases, said the confirmed number of humans infected by the H5N1 virus in Indonesia this year was 20 as of August, with 17 fatalities.
This is a decline, she claimed, from 55 cases with 45 fatalities in 2006 and 42 cases with 37 fatalities in 2007.
<snip>
Despite the declining number of infections, Indonesia has to be alert to the possibility of a bird flu pandemic, which, once it breaks out, could infect up to 66 million people, the Health Ministry warned.
Emil Agustiono, deputy to the coordinating minister for people's welfare, said a bird flu pandemic was unpredictable, but could happen through either the breeding of the H5N1 avian influenza virus with the H3N2/H1N1 human influenza virus, or through the mutation of the H5N1 virus in the human body.
Both processes could produce a new type of deadly, transmittable human-to-human influenza virus, which could then lead to a new influenza pandemic, he said.
