Boy Of 8 Dies Of Bird Flu In Indonesia

According to Indonesian authorities, a boy of 8 is the country's tenth person who has died of bird flu infection.


There is slight confusion as to whether bird flu has been confirmed in this case. Indonesian authorities told Reuters news agency that the boy died of bird flu infection. However, the World Health Organisation says it is waiting for confirmation (lab test results pending).


According to the WHO, the tests are being carried out at their laboratories in Hong Kong.


Bird Flu is still a difficult infection for humans to catch. Over the last two years over 100 million birds have died as a result of bird flu. About 165 humans have been infected during the same period, of which about half have died.


Experts say it is only a question of time before the H5N1 bird flu virus strain, the most deadly one, learns how to spread rapidly among humans - transmit from human to human. When it does, we could be facing a serious, global flu pandemic.


In order to spread rapidly among humans, the bird flu virus would have to undergo a change (mutate). It could do this if it infected a human who had normal human flu. The bird flu virus could exchange genetic information with the human flu virus and pick up its ability to spread from human-to-human.


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