Fri 17 Jun 2005 02:09 pm CSTAUSTIN (myDNA News)
An Indonesian man recently tested positive for the bird flu virus, marking the first human case of the deadly virus in the country.
The man, a poultry farmer from the island of Sulawesi in eastern Indonesia, tested positive for the H5N1 strain but did not show any overt symptoms of the virus. After further investigation, it was found that due to the low count of virus antibodies in his bloodstream, the man was not exposed recently to the virus and he no longer carried the virus.
The bird flu has assailed many regions of Asia. China, along with many other countries, has participated in mass slaughters of livestock in an effort to curb the disease.
Officials at the World Health Organization (WHO) are worried that bird flu could rapidly spread and possibly mutate. Indonesia does not put healthcare at the forefront of their economic budget, and as such, infected individuals may not be able to receive the care necessary to treat and stop the virus from spreading. Also, there was a recent report which concluded that the H5N1 virus could mutate in subjects with both the avian flu and the ordinary flu, creating a strain that is much easier to transmit and could result in a global pandemic.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment