Lethal H5N1 bird flu virus entraps 108th Indonesian

The deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu in Indonesia claimed one more life, taking the total death toll of the country to 108, the Health Ministry said Wednesday. The most recent victim was a a 3-year-old boy from Central Java district of Wonogiri.

The latest fatality comes merely days after Indonesian authorities conducted a large scale bird flu drill. The three day drill that started on Friday involved thousands of villagers, health workers and government officials, rehearsing for a possible pandemic.

According to Nyoman Kandun, director-general of the Communicable Disease Control of the Health Ministry, the toddler died of avian influenza on April 23 after suffering from respiratory problems. The boy first showed the flu-like symptoms of high fever and breathing difficulties on April 17 and was brought to the Muwardi Hospital in Solo five days later, on April 23, the day he died.

Ministry spokeswoman Lily Sulistyowati, said that the child had "a history of contact with dead poultry." Two laboratory tests confirmed that the boy had been infected by the H5N1 virus.

Since 2003, the virus is known to have infected more than 350 people worldwide, of whom 240 are killed in 12 countries in Asia and Africa.

As of Wednesday, the lethal H5N1 virus has so far engulfed 108 human lives out of 133 infected people in Indonesia. The highly pathogenic H5N1 virus has spread to 32 out of 33 provinces in Indonesia since 2003, the health ministry reported.

Influenza A virus subtype H5N1, also known as A(H5N1) or H5N1, is a subtype of the Influenza A virus that is capable of causing illness in many animal species, including humans.

A bird-adapted strain of H5N1, called HPAI A(H5N1) for "highly pathogenic avian influenza virus of type A of subtype H5N1", is the causative agent of H5N1 flu, commonly known as "avian influenza" or simply "bird flu", and is endemic in many bird populations, especially in Southeast Asia.

One strain of HPAI A(H5N1) of Asian lineage is spreading globally. It is epizootic (an epidemic in nonhumans) and panzootic (a disease affecting animals of many species, especially over a wide area), killing tens of millions of birds and prodding the culling of hundreds of millions of other birds in an attempt to control its spread.

Indonesia is criticized by the anti bird flu agencies for showing less efforts to check the H5N1 when it first appeared in poultry stocks and among backyard chickens in 2004. In a report, released last week by the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization, Indonesia’s efforts to curb bird flu over the past few months were categorized as rather small. The experts also considered the country as a potential hotspot for a pandemic that one day could kill millions of people.