Indonesian H5N1 Deaths Confirmed

Indonesia has been one of the world's worst hit countries for the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus and recently the The World Health Organisation officially confirmed that the 5 deaths that were suspected to have occured from bird flu in the country were from the virus. In all 39 people have succumbed to bird flu in Indonesia.

Four of the recent victims came from one family, which has alarmed health officials as they feel that the high rate of infection in one family could be due to the possibility of the bird flu mutating. The Indonesian heath authorities will be looking into the deaths carefully and will want to establish whether the virus was jumping from human to human or whether it was coming directly from the poultry that the family were in contact with. In all eight members of the same family were infected and it was fortunate that only 4 of them died from the disease.

Tamiflu, made by Roche Pharmaceuticals can really help to beat the flu but it must be administered within 48 hours of any H5N1 symptoms developing. If the flu was to mutate and to be easily spread from human to human then the need for Tamiflu would be huge and it is likely that despite concerted efforts by the WHO and Roche to boost supply to all parts of the world the demand would still not be fufilled.

The WHO has set out guidelines for the containing of the bird flu virus in the case of a pandemic outbreak that should be able to prevent the spread of the virus if the regulations are followed. However a widescale panic could set in that would reduce the chances of the disease being contained.