# 2865
Bekasi, a suburb of West Jakarta
Over the past few hours the newshounds on forums like Flutrackers and the Flu Wiki have been intently going over fresh reports coming out of Bekasi, Indonesia indicating a pair of new suspected H5N1 human cases.
As you may recall, two days ago 33 residents were stated to be `under observation' in Bekasi after exposure to an 8-year-old named Andri, who died on Feb 28th.
Ida at the Bird Flu Information Corner - which is a collaborative effort between Kobe University, Japan and Institute of Tropical Disease, Airlangga University, Indonesia in bird flu research - has just posted their translations of a couple of these news reports.
Bekasi, West Java ::: Two human infected suspects
Two victims have added total bird flu suspects in Bekasi
Tempo Interaktif, Bekasi. Other bird flu infected human suspects reported in Bekasi, West Java. One victim reported died and the other is still in medical treatment.
Fatal victim is R (5), resident of Karawang, West Java. Victim passed away on Wednesday (4/3) 21.00 at Mitra Keluarga hospital East Bekasi accompanied with fever and breathing difficulty symptoms.
Another victim who’s under treatment is S (29) resident of Kemakmuran, Kelurahan Margajaya, Kecamatan Bekasi Selatan. S is now under treatment at Hermina hospital, Bekasi.
R had contact with dead chicken nearby, meanwhile S known to have contact with dead pigeon.
Source: Indonesia newspaper, Tempo Interaktif.
These two cases come on the heels of two other suspected fatal cases in the same area, that of N (age 4) who died in early January, and J (age 42) who reportedly died in February.
Two Bekasi fatal victims in “confirmed” status of bird flu casualties.
Two Bekasi fatal victims in “confirmed” status of bird flu casualties.
Bekasi – Within two months, two Bekasi residents who died were confirmed to contract bird flu virus.
N (4), died at the beginning of January after treated at Persahabatan hospital. There was no dead bird history around the victim’s neighborhood in Teluk Pucung, North Bekasi.
Retni Yonti, head of Health Service Bekasi last Thursday (5/3) said that victim had contact history to dead birds but not around his neighborhood. Another victim is J (42), resident of Taman Galaxy, South Bekasi. Former victim was known to have frequent contact with poultries at wet market, even though no dead bird reported around the victim’s residence. This victim also died at Persahabatan hospital.
The `confirmed' status of these two cases is somewhat provisional, although one of them (J) appears to be one of the ones mentioned on Tuesday by Bayu Krisnamurthi, head of the Indonesian Bird Flu Commission.
The other one (N) may be a fatality referenced by the Health Ministry in their January 22nd update.
Obviously, we are going to be watching Bekasi with heightened interest over the next few days and weeks.
My thanks to all of the newshounds on all of the forums who are collecting and translating the news articles coming out of Indonesia, and to Ida in particular, for the fine work that we keep seeing out of the Bird Flu Information Corner.
