# 6302
Although we continue to see conflicting reports come out of Indonesia regarding the 8 year-old from Bali who is suspected to have died from an H5N1 infection earlier this week (see Bali: Suspected Bird Flu Fatality), today the Jakarta Globe is reporting that a local live market has been closed after the detection of bird flu.
Tainted Market Closed After Bird Flu Death in Bali
Made Arya Kencana | April 28, 2012Denpasar. Authorities in Bali closed down the Satria Poultry Market in Denpasar on Friday after several chickens there tested positive for bird flu, days after the resort island recorded the country’s seventh human death this year from the infectious disease.
Anak Agung Gede Bayu Bramasta, the head of the Denpasar livestock agency, said the market would remain closed for at least three weeks.
Bali, a popular international tourist destination, has seen more than a half dozen high profile H5N1 cases over the past several years. In order to protect the island’s economy, in 2005 it was decreed that only locally raised chickens could be sold on the island.
But as this story indicates, those rules are routinely flouted and poultry are imported from East Java on a daily basis.
If this week’s fatality is eventually confirmed to have been due to the H5N1 virus, it will mark the second bird flu fatality on the island (see WHO Update Mar 1, 2012) this year. Last fall, a 29-year old mother, and her two children, from Bali died of the virus as well (see WHO Indonesia Update #8 2011).
Although we continue to see isolated human infections around the world, and the virus continues to evolve (see H5N1: An Increasingly Complex Family Tree), for now H5N1 is primarily a threat to poultry.
The concern, of course, is that over time that could change.
And so the world remains at Pre-pandemic Phase III on the H5N1 virus, and we continue to watch for signs that the virus is adapting better to humans.
