Another Bird Flu Death Hits Indonesia

In October four people have died from the bird flu virus in Indonesia

More bad news from Indonesia regarding the bird flu virus is that a toddler has passed away from the H5N1 bird flu virus after having been close to a bird that had died from the deadly virus. The news was confirmed by the Ministry of Health in Indonesia and it now means that 89 people have died from the bird flu virus in the country. This makes Indonesia the worst suffering nation in the world regarding deaths from the virus and nearly half of all the bird flu deaths in the world have been in Indonesia. 

The four year old girl who died came from the outskirts of Jakarta and had been in hospital for two days before dying. Samples have been sent to local laboratories which can identify the H5N1 bird flu virus and the virus has been confirmed. In the month of October four people have died from the bird flu virus in Indonesia and it is clear that the disease attacks all types of people. The deaths were a 44 year old female, a 21 year old male and a 12 year old boy.

Part of the issue in Indonesia is that people tend to live with the poultry in their backyards.  It is common for children to play with the chickens and other birds and thus many people are placed in close contact to infected poultry. Despite public education campaigns the cultural change needed to prevent people from getting close to their birds is almost impossible to enforce.

Should the bird flu virus mutate into a form which made it very easy for humans to contract it from birds the Indonesian government would have an extremely dangerous problem on its hands.