|
|
JAKARTA - Indonesia dismissed fears of a virus re-assortment between avian and human seasonal influenza strains in a 2007 human death involving bird flu infection, the country's health ministry senior official said here. Director General of Communicable Diseases I Nyoman Kandun said the possibility of re-assortment between the avian influenza virus and other flu viruses was always possible, but had not yet happened.
"When and where it will happen, nobody knows. Risk assessment therefore is very important," Kandun was quoted by the Jakarta Post as saying Thursday. Re-assortment of the highly pathogenic avian influenza and seasonal flu virus would give birth to a "new" virus that could be easily transmitted from human to human, resulting in a pandemic.
Scientific journal Cidrap has quoted researcher Vivi Setiawaty of the Center for Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Research and Development as saying a 16-year-old Indonesian girl died of co-infection between seasonal and avian strains of influenza in April 2007. The girl tested positive for flu under the Health Ministry's flu-surveillance system, which was established in 2005 shortly after the country reported its first bird flu infection in a human.
Cidrap said the girl's case occurred within the period when the Indonesian government ceased sharing flu isolates with the international laboratory overseen by the World Health Organization. "Such infections are of great concern due to the possibility of genetic re-assortment leading to the emergence of a H5N1 strain that is more easily transmitted human to human, and emphasizes the importance of advanced laboratory-based surveillance in geographic regions where both human and avian influenza viruses are co-circulating," Cidrap reported.
Asked about the finding, Kandun said Indonesia needed to strengthen its surveillance system, including laboratory capacity. I Gusti Ngurah Mahardhika, a virologist and microbiologist at Udayana University in Denpasar, said the co-infection involving the girl most likely was not the first such case in Indonesia because researchers used to focus only on H5N1 and did not check for the presence of other H viruses.
|
|
|
|
|
|
There are no reactions on this blog entry yet. Be the first one to give a reaction here!
|
|
Log in to write a reaction
|
You are not logged in to the website. You have to be logged in to write a reaction on this blog entry.
· If you already have an account, please login.
· If you have lost your password, please retrieve it.
· If you don't have an account yet, you can create one.
|
|
|
| ABOUT THIS ENTRY |
Add this blog entry to your email, your own blog, MySpace, Facebook, or whatsoever via AddThis:
|
Login if you want to receive emails for reactions on this blog entry. You will receive an update as soon as a reaction on this blog entry is posted.
|
|
Looking for e-tickets for flights in Indonesia? Here's your solution! Order your e-tickets at ticketindonesia.info.
|
| BLOG ARCHIVE |
· 2010, 166 entries
· 2009, 916 entries
· 2008, 504 entries
· 2007, 725 entries
· 2006, 1014 entries
· 2005, 723 entries
· 2004, 558 entries
· 2003, 525 entries
· 2002, 375 entries
· 2001, 162 entries
|
| POPULAR TAGS |
Automatically generated every hour
|
| EXCHANGE RATES |
@ 21 Mar 2010 01:08 CET
|
@ 21 Mar 2010 00:08 CET
|
@ 21 Mar 2010 01:51 CET
|
@ 21 Mar 2010 01:04 CET
|
@ 20 Mar 2010 23:59 CET
|
|
| Go to 'exchange rates' |
|
