Two people died of H5N1 avian influenza in Indonesia in the past few weeks,
the World Health Organization (WHO) said today, while news reports from Bangladesh cited that country’s first human H5N1 case this year.
The Indonesian victims were a 2-year-old boy and a 31-year-old woman, who both had exposure to poultry, the WHO said, citing the Indonesian Ministry of Health as its information source.
The boy was from Depok in West Java province and fell ill on Feb 3, the WHO said. He was admitted to a private clinic on Feb 5, was hospitalized Feb 6, and died the same day. Sick and dead poultry were reported in his neighborhood before he got sick, the statement said.
The 31-year-old woman was from Bekasi, West Java, the WHO reported. She was admitted to a private clinic on Feb 25, 2 days after her illness began, and was hospitalized Feb 28. Despite receiving oseltamivir (Tamiflu) treatment in the hospital, she died on Mar 1. An initial investigation showed she had visited a market where live poultry were sold.
With the two latest cases, Indonesia’s H5N1 case count rose to 174, including 144 fatal cases, the WHO said. Earlier this month the WHO confirmed Indonesia’s first H5N1 case and death of 2011, in a 26-year-old woman who died Feb 8.
In Bangladesh, an H5N1 infection was confirmed today in a 13-month-old girl in Dhaka, the capital, according to a report from bdnews24.com, citing the Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research. The case is the first in the country this year, the story said.
The WHO has confirmed only one Bangladeshi H5N1 case at this point, in a 16-month-old boy in 2008. His case was not fatal.
The girl was said to be “out of danger.” The story did not list her possible source of exposure to the virus, but a series of H5N1 outbreaks in poultry have been reported in Bangladesh in recent weeks.
The WHO’s global count of H5N1 cases, which does not yet include the Bangladesh case, stands at 532, including 315 deaths.
Source: CIDRAP
