javascript:commonPopup%28%27/printable.htm?URL=/thenews/newsdesk/L21276444.htm%27, 540, 525, 1, %27printerPopup%27%29; - Printable view | http://www.alertnet.org/emailafriend.htm - Email this article | http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/rss/index.xml - RSS http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/rss/index.xml"> [ javascript:sizeDown%28%29; - - ] javascript:resetCurrentsize%28%29; - Text [ javascript:sizeUp%28%29; - + ]

< id=CurrentSize = value=13 name=CurrentSize> JAKARTA, May 21 (Reuters) - An 18-year-old East Java shuttlecock maker has been diagnosed with bird flu, according to local test results announced on Sunday.

The Health Ministry's Director General for Disease Control, I Nyoman Kandun, told Reuters that the victim was undergoing treatment in hospital and that a sample of his blood will be sent to a Hong Kong laboratory recognised by the World Health Organisation (WHO) for further testing.

"He was working as a shuttlecock maker. We are still tracing where (the factory) got the feathers," Kandun said.

Most human cases of bird flu from the H5N1 virus are believed to stem from direct or indirect contact with infected poultry.

At least 32 people have died of bird flu in Indonesia, the second highest toll after Vietnam where 42 have died. More than half that number have died this year.

Last week the number of confirmed infections in one family on Indonesia's Sumatra island hit six, a so-called "cluster" case that raised concern about possible human-to-human transmission of the virus.

Indonesian and international officials are still investigating the case to try to determine the cause. Experts fear if human-to-human transmission developed it could lead to a pandemic.

No other members of the North Sumatra village where the family lived are known to have been infected with bird flu, the WHO has said, but the world body has not ruled out limited human-to-human transmission in the family cluster.

Bird flu has spread across Europe, Africa and Asia and has killed 123 people worldwide, the majority in east Asia, since re-appearing in 2003. Virtually all the victims caught the disease from poultry.

The H5N1 virus is endemic in much of Indonesia.

http://www.alertnet.org/ - AlertNet news is provided by

http://www.alertnet.org/redir.htm?URL=http://www.reuters.com/">

 

This is a new case today. Shuttlecocks are those little things you hit in badminton. Thus they are trying to trace where the feathers on the shuttlecock were from.