The Makassar 17 can go home now
Posted on Friday, November 21, 2008 at 03:03PM
by
Scott McPherson
in Politics and government, influenza and infectious diseases
|
2 Comments
Scott McPherson
in Politics and government, influenza and infectious diseases
|
2 Comments
A suspected bird flu cluster has been ruled out.
At one point, the seventeen villagers from Makassar, Indonesia, were held under guard, so they would not run away.
Now, apparently, they can go home of their own free will. Bird flu has been officially ruled out as the source of their malaise, according to the always-reliable Health Ministry (can you see my tongue in my cheek?).
What it WAS was not mentioned. But we apparently know what it wasn't, and it wasn't H5N1. Thank goodness.
Reader Comments (2)
If the tests carried out in Jakarta were serological ones, it is possible that they could be falsely negative because samples may have been taken from the patients too early - similarly as happened with myself some few years ago when a serological test taken some few weeks after the first appearance of symptoms was falsely negative for Bordetella pertussis (but positive six months later). Suppression of interferon production in virally infected cells is an important virulence trait in hypervirulent influenza viruses; is is therefore possible that more time may be needed for appearance of a positive serological test in patients infected with H5N1 than for ordinary influenza where interferon production in virally infected cells is not suppressed. Repeated serological testing of the Makassar patients is therefore needed before one can be certain that they were not infected with H5N1.
Sure... load up an H5N1 positive patient with Tamiflu and they test negative.
That doesn't mean they weren't positive first.
All this does is move us closer to a devastating pandemic that begins suddenly... with no warning... because they are lying through their teeth.
Shame on Indonesia. Shame on WHO. Shame on the CDC. And shame on anyone who has been following this and blindly accepts what the Indonesian Government says.