# 4958
For more than 10 days we’ve been watching a series of reports out of several regions of Indonesia (Pinrang, Riau, Balikpapan) where suspect cases of human H5N1 infection are being monitored and tested following outbreaks of bird flu in poultry.
A Roundup Of Indonesian Reports
Indonesia Still Simmering
While the lab results from the majority of these cases have not been revealed, local media has reported initial results on at least one of them.
This from the hard working Arkanoid Legent.
Indonesia : Bird flu suspect in Balikpapan Checked Again
Translated report from Media Indonesia :
" BALIKPAPAN : A vocational student in Balikpapan, East Kalimantan suspects (suspect) bird flu and has been hospitalized in the isolation room of General Hospital Kanudjoso Djatiwibowo (RSKD), will undergo a re-examination after the initial examination showed negative results."I hope no one is infected," said Secretary of Health Office of Balikpapan ballerina, Tuesday (5 / 10).
To ensure the condition of the patient, whether the suspect bird flu or not, the City Health Department will conduct a re-examination so that the patient's condition can be known.
Laboratory testing for the H5N1 virus can be difficult and prone to error, and false-negatives are not uncommon. It is therefore common practice in Indonesia to conduct several tests before confirming or ruling out the virus.
While it is reasonable to be suspicious when people develop flu-like symptoms in close proximity to a bird flu outbreak, there are a number of common viral illnesses that can produce the same symptomology.
Once again proving that correlation doesn’t necessarily imply causation.
We’ll have to wait to see whether any of the other suspect cases test positive for the virus. This teenager in Balikpapan is far removed from the the cases being monitored in South Sulawesi.
In addition to bloggers Arkanoid Legent, Crof and Ida at BFIC, you can also find monitoring of the situation in Indonesia on these FluTrackers threads (here and here) and on the Flu Wiki in their Indonesian thread.
