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Region In Grip Of Deadly Bird Flu

Bandar Seri Begawan - Brunei Darussalam has taken every precaution to keep the deadly bird flu virus at bay even as the resurgent H5N 1 strain has been killing humans and affecting poultry farms in Indonesia and Vietnam.

Egypt and Kuwait are also reeling from the spread of the killer virus, as experts worry the virus might mutate into a form that passes easily among humans, potentially igniting a pandemic. So far, most human cases have been traced to contact with infected birds.

Bird flu has killed two more Indonesians, taking the death toll in the nation worst hit by the deadly virus to 71, a health official said Sunday, AFP reported.

"The Indonesian toll now stands at 91 human cases and 71 deaths," he said.

Meanwhile, bird flu has struck two duck farms in southern Vietnam, the government said just days after claiming the virus had been contained in the Southeast Asian country. Sixty-five ducks died on two small, private farms in the southern province of Ca Mau, and tests late last month showed they were infected with the lethal H5N 1 bird flu virus strain, the Department of Animal

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Health said on its Web site.

Indonesian scientists are baffled by the "random" behaviour of the virus afflicting the country.

"The random aspect of the disease ... unfortunately led scientists to say that (the behaviour of) the virus remains a mystery," said Bayu Krisnamurthi, head of the national commission on bird flu control at a meeting with 40 other scientists to discuss the disease.

Wide differences were seen in the patterns of human infections and development of various stages of the disease, making it difficult to predict, said Krisnamurthi.

"There was no correlation found between (a patient's) age, sex, genetics, and other (attributes)," he said.

"What is clear is the risk factors, such as contact with sick birds, sanitation, and so on, but this is very general."

Krisnamurthi gave an example where three members of a family showed similar symptoms this year, but only the mother and son tested positive. The mother later died of the disease and the son survived.

"All we know is that patients died of multi-organ failure at the late stages of the illness," he said.

Krisnamurthi said more in-depth study was needed on human infections "and the only way to do this is by carrying out autopsies on fatal human victims".

Less than 10 fatal cases worldwide and none of the victims died in Indonesia have undergone autopsies, he said.

"We have only known that the virus is found in the respiratory organs of infected patients. It is possible that it can be found on other organs, but we wouldn't know that without an autopsy," he said.

Autopsies on dead infected birds showed that the virus had spread to many other organs, causing them to fail. -- Courtesy of Borneo Bulletin

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