# 5933
Most years, H5N1 bird flu activity declines over the summer months and begins to pick up again in the fall. The peak of the season usually occurs in late winter or early spring.
Which means that between now and the end of April, we are likely to see an increasing number of outbreaks reported. Most of these will involve wild birds, or poultry, but with these avian outbreaks also come a greater number of human cases as well.
You can easily see the pattern in the FAO chart below, which lists confirmed human cases by month and country.
HPAI poultry outbreaks in the the two countries that have seen the greatest number of human cases – Egypt and Indonesia – follows this seasonal pattern closely.
Source FAO
The H5N1 virus, while thus far found only in Europe, Asia, and Africa, has been detected in more than 60 countries since 2003, although human infections have only been confirmed in 15 nations.
Source WHO
These charts represent known, reported cases. There are areas of the world where surveillance, testing, and reporting are nearly non-existent, so other cases may well have gone unreported.
As expected, over the past month bird flu activity has begun to pick up again – particularly in Indonesia.
We’ve seen 2 confirmed H5N1 fatalities, with another strongly suspected bird flu death, on the island of Bali in October. Additionally, local hospitals have isolated and treated more than 2 dozen `suspect cases’ (see Watching Bali Again).
Those who have followed bird flu in past years are aware that many of these suspect cases will turn out to have something other than `bird flu’.
Seasonal influenza, RSV, pneumonia, and other viral agents tend to circulate during the same time of the year as bird flu, and all of those can produce clinical symptoms indistinguishable from H5N1.
So we tend to get a lot of `false alarms’ in the press. Of course, sometimes they turn out to be bird flu.
With that in mind, we’ve another report (picked up yesterday morning by Gert van der Hoek on FluTrackers (see thread) that indicates a large number of poultry deaths have occurred in East Java, and somewhere between 7 and 9 people have been treated for suspected `bird flu symptoms’.
Ida at BFIC has a brief update on the story this morning as well.
Jember, East Java ::: Hundreds of chickens die of H5N1. People develop flu signs.
Posted by Ida on November 1, 2011
Jember – Hundreds of chickens had died suddenly in Karang Baru village, Silo sub-district, Jember, East Java. A total 76 chickens from 17 households are H5N1 positive.
Seven residents are suspected of having bird flu infection, where 3 have recovered and 2 are still under treatment. Those people developed flu signs following to contact with dead chickens. Health Service has distributed masks for people living near the outbreak.
Suspects have been treated with Tamiflu.
Health Service has collected the swab sample of suspects, Monday (31/10), to be sent to Health Center Laboratory in Surabaya.
Livestock Service has controlled the situation by disinfecting the chicken cages which possibly infected with bird flu.
We’ll have to wait for lab reports to know if any of these cases are actually due to the H5N1 virus. For now, they are just `suspect cases’.
Reports like these tend to come fast and furious during the winter months, sometimes generating a great deal of media buzz, speculation, and alarm.
Most will turn out to something other than bird flu. At least that’s been the history to date.
But scientists continue to worry that the virus will eventually learn to adapt to human physiology. And so we watch reports like the ones above closely for signs of that happening.
Particularly this time of year.
