Scott McPherson's Web Presence

First, the good news:  The "Medan Eight" suspected H5N1 patients have all tested negative.  This was done using conventional PCR testing.  The photo at left, by the way, was taken in June in Medan, where several suspected human cases of H5N1 occurred in May and June of this year.

The good news about Medan is tempered by the apparent revelation that 44-year old Riau H5N1 victim Linda Tismeri actually traveled to Jakarta while suffering from bird flu symptoms (and, hypothetically and probably, was shedding virus all the way there and all the way back).  intrepid FluTrackers and Flu Wiki poster Commonground has reworked, via ToggleText, a translation from Malay into English of a Riau newspaper's story.  Here it is:

Investigation, he said, also will be carried out down to Jakarta, where being known in the period of casualties's illness, had departed for Jakarta to visit to the family's house at the same time taking medicine there.
In Jakarta there, the increase, also will be found out by the possibility of the occurrence of the spread of the virus.
‘’Saat this we still could not answer from where the source of his spread.
All the possibilities could happen, good in the house, in the place of his activity or arrived at Jakarta the place that had been visited by him.
This that will be investigated by us more jauh,’’ said he.

More: http://www.riautoday.com/new/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2821&Itemid=1

So the Indonesian authorities are dutifully following up on the dead woman's family in Jakarta, to see if the woman brought more than glad tidings to her family's home.  This is precisely the nightmare scenario we all fear:  An infected person in a remote part of a nation travels to a densely populated city to visit family or go shopping.  The end result is a plague of unmentionable lethality, let loose without warning.  Folks, this is no longer the stuff of horror fiction.  Stay tuned.  And thanks to Commonground. http://www.flutrackers.com/forum/showthread.php?t=37702&page=2