Sole survivor of Indonesian family infected with bird flu unfazed

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-bird30.html

MEDAN, Indonesia -- The sole survivor in a cluster of Indonesian relatives infected with bird flu lies in an open-air hospital room, chickens pecking outside his door and visitors shuffling in and out without masks or protective gear.

The patient, Johannes Ginting, is still very weak but seems unconcerned. He even fled the hospital when he first fell ill with the H5N1 virus, and has since resisted treatment, balking at the bird flu drug Tamiflu and other medicine.

''We had actually given masks and gloves to the family, and we informed them how dangerous this disease is, but they didn't cooperate with us,'' said Nurrasyid Lubis, deputy director of Adam Malik Hospital. ''We also informed him how dangerous it is, but he didn't believe us.'' snip


Ginting's mother, who declines to reveal her name, sits on a straw mat on a grassy patch outside her son's hospital room.

Despite losing three children and four grandchildren, she is not afraid to care for her son, who must be fed and is too weak to sit unaided since falling ill May 4. snip

''I'm not afraid. I don't even wear a mask or anything,'' she said. ''If it spreads, I will be the first one to die.''

[the other one]

1. Containing an outbreak could prove difficult if

Containing an outbreak could prove difficult if this turns out to be a common attitude among third world peoples.

[kestrel91316]

4. Heck, I suspect this sort of attitude would be EXTREMELY common

among Americans if the flu becomes pandemic and reaches us. The attitude of late is all ME ME ME and MINE MINE MINE.

We have no social conscience anymore, as a nation. Caring about someone other than oneself is COMMUNIST!!!!!!!!!!!

[Mojorabbit]

2. What worries me is the WHO is rewriting their phase

definitions. According to the phase descriptions now we probably should be at phase four but when they even mentioned it the markets around the world reacted badly.
WHO to rewrite pandemic staging descriptions in wake of Indonesian cluster

By HELEN BRANSWELL

(CP) - The World Health Organization plans to redraft the descriptions of its pandemic phases, a task triggered by the confusion provoked by the recent large cluster of human cases of H5N1 avian flu in Indonesia.

The acting head of the WHO's global influenza program says the rewrite will spell out more clearly how the agency thinks a novel influenza virus would behave during the different phases leading up to a pandemic.

The redraft should also help people understand why the WHO doesn't believe the Indonesian cluster - which killed seven of eight infected members of a family in at least three waves of illness - signifies a change in the level of pandemic risk.
snip
The current pandemic phasing document is a six-step ladder going from no known pandemic threat (Phase 1) to a full-blown pandemic (Phase 6). Many experts admit it's hard to see the difference between Phase 3 (no human-to-human spread or rare instances where a person has had close contact with an infected person), Phase 4 (small clusters of limited and localized person-to-person spread) and Phase 5 (larger but still localized clusters of human-to-human spread).

snip
Redrafting the language may pose challenges. After all, the emergence of a pandemic flu virus is an uncharted process, one which science has never had the capacity to watch.
More here and well worth reading
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/2006/05/28/pf-1602743.html

I think they were peeing their pants during this last cluster, they deployed tamiflu to an
"undisclosed location" to be ready to act, sent in teams from all over the world, and thankfully it petered out. It is scary to think how quickly it could happen and if so we would have probably only a few weeks before it spread worldwide.

[mike_c]

3. phase transitions should be defined by ease of transmission...

...as well as by epidemiologic frequency, e.g. Phase 3 = 1 in 10,000 instances of exposure to infected humans result in human-human transmission, isolated single cases only; Phase 4 = 1 in 1000 exposures result in human-human transmission, lsolated small clusters limited to people with frequent contact only; Phase 5 = 1 in 100 exposures result in human-human transmission, large clusters of infection including people having little or no contact; Phase 6 = 1 in 10 (or more) exposures result in infection, large simultaneous clusters of infected (or post-infected) people on multiple continents. Unfortunately, the ease of transmission data has to be inferred from the epidemiological data and this is, at best, guessing.

BTW, I chose the log₁₀ phase transitions arbitrarily-- they're not based on any real information. That just seemed like a reasonable assumption, but an epidemiologist might think differently.

[thecrow]

5. Hmmm ... he resisted treatment and is the only one to SURVIVE?

That is bizarre.
I wonder if they plan to use his blood to make a vaccine? as tamiflu doesn't appear to work...

[Mojorabbit]

6. I believe I read that he has refused tamiflu.