Posted 13 February 2006 @ 19:05
Updated 13 February 2006 @ 19:06
JAKARTA, 13 February 2006 - Four people showing symptoms of bird flu have been hospitalised in Indonesia, with doctors saying they became ill after coming into contact with sick chickens, hospital officials said. Three members of the same family were transferred to the Sulianti Saroso hospital for infectious diseases in Jakarta on Sunday from the west Java town of Cirebon, said hospital spokesman Ilham Patu.
He told Agence France-Presee that the three -- a married couple aged 28 and 22, and their two-year-old child -- were hospitalised in Cirebon on Saturday for respiratory problems and high fever. Patu said the fourth patient was a 50-year-old chicken seller in intensive care at a hospital in the West Java capital of Bandung.
If the married couple and their child test positive for the H5N1 virus, they would become Indonesia's fifth cluster case of infection, said Sardikin Giriputro, the deputy chief of the Sulianti Saroso hospital. Giriputro said Indonesia had four confirmed cluster cases, infections of people who were related or living close together, the highest in the world.
'But we cannot yet determine whether there has been transmission between members of a cluster,' he said.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has confirmed 18 bird flu fatalities in Indonesia since July 2005. At least seven other people are confirmed to have been infected.
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