Ignorance a key factor in H5N1 infections-experts

JAKARTA, June 21 (Reuters) Many people who contracted the H5N1 bird flu virus in Indonesia were ignorant and never warned about the disease and children are the ones most vulnerable, medical experts said today.

''Children may be off to play with sick chickens ... an activity that adults do less of,'' Thomas Grein, a leading epidemiologist at the World Health Organisation, told Reuters on the sidelines of an experts meeting on bird flu.

''Other high risk exercises are slaughtering of sick birds, de-feathering and preparing food. But if you wash your hands, it can reduce that risk very dramatically,'' he said. ''But again, this is less often done by the younger person than adult.'' The H5N1 virus has infected 51 people and killed 39 of them in Indonesia since 2005 and is now endemic in poultry in nearly all of the country's 33 provinces.

It is common in the far-flung country of 17,000 islands for households to keep chickens for food and extra income - which means that everyone, and not just poultry workers, is at risk.

School-age children and children less than 10 years of age make up over 40 percent of Indonesia's H5N1 human infections. People are not used to the idea that sick birds could be dangerous and children play with chickens and are sent to clean up after them.

''It shows that the risk profile is much broader than we expected. It's not only poultry workers. This is because the virus is found so widely in backyard chicken,'' said Steven Bjorge, WHO's medical officer of communicable diseases.

''There were other diseases in birds but they did not cross over to humans in the past. That's the situation that they are not familiar with,'' he said.

''People need to understand that dead chickens are a high risk factor. If there is dead chicken, they need to call the authority to clean them properly and should not let children touch them.'' MORE REUTERS SHR PM1842