- JAKARTA (AFP) -- Indonesian
scientists and officials said 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.
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- 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.
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- Officials from the ministry of agriculture's bird flu
control unit told a media briefing that the risk factors for human infection
remained unclear after studies were conducted around victims' homes.
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- "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," said the unit's Tjahjani Widjastuti
at the briefing late Tuesday.
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- The usual mode of transmission of the deadly H5N1 strain
of bird flu is directly from an infected bird -- typically poultry -- to
humans.
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- "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," Widjastuti said.
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- Globally, scientists fear that the virus will eventually
mutate into a form easily spread between people.
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- 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.
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- Bird flu is endemic in all of Indonesia's 33 provinces
except for Gorontalo on Sulawesi island and in North Maluku, said Widjastuti.
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