One of the things experts, public officials, and Flubies have been dealing with is the lack of autopsies on those that die from H5N1 infections. That lack has dramatically hindered our understanding of how the virus behaves and kills.
In Indonesia, a predominately Muslim country, autopsies are extremely rare, as in almost never... ever.
Autopsies suggested in bird flu fight
National News - Tuesday, April 03, 2007
Emmy Fitri, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The national commission on bird flu has suggested the government conduct autopsies on all bird flu victims to better understand how the disease moves through the human body.
A panel of experts appointed by the commission said Friday that while the virus was primarily transmitted from birds to humans through the respiratory system, it spread through other organs, potentially resulting in fatal multiple organ failure.
Indonesia has the world's highest number of human deaths from the H5N1 bird flu virus. As of last week, 71 people died in Indonesia of the disease. Seven deaths were reported in March alone.
"There is no specific data on which of the (victims) died of multiple organ failure. Nor is there detail on whether it's a trend in the most recent cases. But experts are saying most of the 71 cases (resulted in multiple organ failure)," chairman of the National Commission for Avian Influenza and Pandemic Preparedness, Bayu Krisnamurthi said.
Speaking after Friday's closed-door meeting with the expert panel, Bayu said postmortem examinations performed on infected chickens showed the H5N1 virus had ravaged all of the animals' organs as severely as it had the lungs.
"In human cases, we haven't come so far (that we know) whether or not the virus is also spreading to other organs. Such a conclusion can only be reached through autopsies. It's really still a mystery," he said.
Bayu said performing autopsies would "need careful further consideration", since the procedure was laden with significant religious, social and legal considerations.
By law, only the police can ask for a family's consent for an autopsy on a dead body for investigation purposes. Religion is the main ground on which families refuse such requests.
The last time I remember seeing a figure it stated that only ten autopsies had been conducted on human victims world-wide. That's 10 out of 170 WHO confirmed H5N1 deaths.
It is the 21st Century and the world is facing a potential threat the likes of which humanity hasn't seen since the Black Death in the Middle Ages and we are facing that threat ignorant of important information. We do not have the information we need because of religious considerations.
I make a concerted effort to be respectful of all religions, but when the world faces this severe of a potential threat, a threat that could cost upwards of 100's of millions of lives, it is time, actually long past time, for religion to step aside, or more appropriately, step up, to help us all face it.
There are over one billion Muslims in the world today, a moderately severe influenza pandemic, along the lines of 1918, with a comparable mortality rate in developing countries, could see somewhere around 60 million deaths amongst Muslims. Put another way, that's roughly twice the entire population of Canada.
[snip]
Bayu said the key to tackling the disease's high mortality rate was the early detection of bird flu infections and the immediate treatment of those showing the symptoms of avian influenza.
Without giving an exact date, Bayu said the commission's panel of experts would compare the DNA sequences recovered from humans with those from poultry.
Any difference between the DNA sequences found from humans and poultry would signify that the virus had mutated. Scientists fear the possibility of a mutation allowing the virus to transfer from one human to another, which could trigger a deadly worldwide pandemic.
Let us hope that the unspecified date is not too terribly far in the future. And equally important, let us hope they don't find anything newsworthy.
SZ