Indonesian scientists find behaviour of bird flu virus puzzling

Business Times 7 Feb 08;

(JAKARTA) Indonesian scientists and officials said that they were baffled by the 'mysterious' behaviour of the bird flu virus here, which has already claimed nine lives this year in the world's worst-hit nation.

Indonesia has reported 126 cases of H5N1 bird flu, 103 of them fatal, since 2005. This year's victims have all come from the capital Jakarta and its satellite cities.

Officials from the ministry of agriculture's bird flu control unit told a media briefing that the risk factors for human infection remained unclear.

Tjahjani Widjastuti, an official with the department of agriculture, said that studies were undertaken around the homes of victims. 'In some of the cases, we found the virus in the water and chickens, but in many other cases the studies showed no signs of the virus in the surroundings,' she said at a briefing late on Tuesday.

The usual mode of transmission of the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu is directly from an infected bird - typically poultry - to humans.

'The behaviour (of the virus in Indonesia) is mysterious and we are competing with the dynamics of the virus. There needs to be deeper study on why there are more cases in humans, what are the risk factors ... so we can cut the chain of infection to humans.'

Globally, scientists fear that the virus will eventually mutate into a form easily spread between people.

Bird flu is endemic in all of Indonesia's 33 provinces except for Gorontalo on Sulawesi island and in North Maluku, said Ms Widjastuti.

Indonesia has been sharply criticised for being slow to act in its fight to control bird flu, which has spread easily in a nation where many people keep chickens and other birds in their gardens and homes. -- AFP