Tick, Tick, Tick, - Indo H5N1 Death Toll To 74

It is now against the law to raise poultry in residential areas in Indonesia. Many wonder how authorities are going to police this new regulation, given that over 30 million families have poultry in their backyard. Image Credit: New Delhi Television Limited (NDTV)

Tick, Tick, Tick, - Indo H5N1 Death Toll To 74

Last month, Indonesia had five deaths tied directly to the Avian bird flu virus (H5N1). This makes this country the deadliest of all countries with deaths from the transference of the flu disease from birds.

It is now only one full week into April and already two deaths have been recorded in this hot spot for bird flu transference activity.

Excerpts from Medical News Today (UK) -

Indonesian Bird Flu Human Death Toll Reaches 74
Avian Flu News - Article Date: 07 Apr 2007 - 8:00 PDT

A 29-year-old man died of H5N1 bird flu infection, Indonesian authorities have confirmed today - the 74th human to die of bird flu infection in the country. The man came from Central Java province. According to authorities, he had been in close contact with infected poultry prior to becoming ill.
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Scientists fear that the H5N1 bird flu virus strain will eventually mutate and become easily human transmissible. This has not happened yet. Humans do not catch bird flu from birds easily - it is extremely rare for one person to infect another person.

One way H5N1 could mutate might be by infecting a person who is ill with the normal human flu virus. The bird flu virus would then have the opportunity to exchange genetic information with the human flu virus and acquire its ability to spread easily from human-to-human (become easily human transmissible). If this happened we could be facing a serious (global) flu pandemic.
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