Survivor of flu-stricken family goes home

BY MARGIE MASON ASSOCIATED PRESS MEDAN, Indonesia -- Jones Ginting can't remember much of his battle with bird flu, and it's probably for the best. For the first two weeks, he slipped in and out of consciousness at Adam Malik Hospital. His skin stuck to the sweaty sheets as a fever raged. When he did come to, he was delirious and agitated, fighting nurses who were trying to give him the antiviral drug Tamiflu. Looking back, Ginting might have remembered how his family gathered in late April, laughing and chatting, eating chicken curry and grilled pork as the children played. Then, one by one, they started falling sick and dying. First his sister, then nephews, a niece and two other siblings. Suddenly, world attention focused on the family in a tiny Christian farming village on Indonesia's Sumatra island. Seven of the eight sickened relatives tested positive for the H5N1 bird flu virus, the World Health Organization said. And though specimens were not taken from Ginting's sister before burial, she is considered part of the world's largest reported cluster. The WHO later said she likely got infected from contact with poultry, then passed the virus on to other relatives through limited human-to-human transmission. Until then, most bird flu cases were linked to contact with infected birds. Bird flu has killed at least 133 people since it began ravaging Asian poultry stocks in late 2003. Ginting, 24, was scared and confused initially, refusing to believe that bird flu was to blame. His head pounded and it "felt like a hammer was hitting my hips again and again." Blood gushed out of his nose and he had two-hour coughing fits that left him exhausted. Ginting began feeling better in late June and was released from the hospital last week. He says the experience helped him stop drinking and smoking, but there's one thing he refuses to give up. "I do eat chicken," he said. Detroit Free Press