Indonesia doctor urges fast bird flu test in humans
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A rapid test for bird flu infections in humans is key for existing treatments to be more effective, a doctor from a hospital in the Indonesian capital treating patients with the disease said on Thursday.
Santoso Soeroso, director of Sulianti Saroso hospital for infectious diseases, said the average time it took for patients with the disease to get to his hospital was 5.7 days.
Tamiflu, a drug made by Swiss giant Roche AG, which has been used successfully to treat some patients, rapidly loses its effectiveness if not used in early stages of the disease.
“The only effective treatment right now is Tamiflu, but it has to be given within 48 hours after the symptoms appear, after that the effectiveness is going down,” Soeroso told Reuters on the sidelines of a symposium on bird flu.
Indonesia has seen a steady rise in human bird flu infections and deaths since its first known outbreak of H5N1 in poultry in late 2003, and has registered more deaths this year than any other country.
A World Health Organisation laboratory test confirmed last week a 5-year-old Indonesian boy who died last month was infected with bird flu, taking the total number of confirmed bird flu fatalities in the country to 40.
“There are rapid tests for chickens but cannot be used for humans,” Soeroso added.
Currently, local tests in Indonesia take around a week and then need to be passed onto WHO laboratories in other countries for confirmation.
The geography of the sprawling, developing nation of 220 million also makes it harder to treat patients quickly.
“As you know Indonesia is very, very big, there are very many people.”
Separately, a doctor from Indonesia’s North Sumatra province told reporters that a man who had survived in the largest known human cluster case would be released from hospital on Monday.
Seven members of his family died in May from bird flu in the case where experts said there could have been limited human-to-human transmission.
“But he survived, that’s become a very big question, is it because he has strong immune system or something else,” said Professor Luhur Soeroso, director of the Pulmonolgy department at North Sumatra University.
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