Indonesian vendor dies of bird flu – hospital

JAKARTA (Reuters) – An Indonesian chicken seller whom local
tests showed had been infected with the H5N1 bird flu virus has
died, a hospital official said on Thursday.

If confirmed by outside laboratories recognised by the
World Health Organization (WHO), the case would take total
known deaths in Indonesia from avian flu to 15.

“The 22-year-old man died at 2 p.m. He was the vendor from
a traditional market and the only positive case that we were
treating today,” said Ilham Patu, a spokesman of the Jakarta
hospital designated to deal with bird flu patients.

On Wednesday, the health ministry said the man worked as a
chicken vendor in a Jakarta market.

The latest death comes as WHO drew attention to the threat
posed by Indonesia’s traditional markets and urged that hygiene
and sanitation standards be improved.

The global health body has called for preventive measures
included limiting contact between humans and poultry in
markets, as well as better access to water and improved waste
management.

The H5N1 virus is not known to pass easily between humans
at the moment, but experts fear it could develop that ability
and set off a global pandemic that might kill millions of
people.

Asia remains the epicentre of the fight against bird flu,
although the virus has this month killed children in Turkey as
it spreads westwards to the edge of Europe.

Bird flu has killed at least 83 people in six countries
since late 2003.

The highly pathogenic strain of bird flu has affected birds
in two-thirds of the provinces in Indonesia, an archipelago of
about 17,000 islands and 220 million people.

The country has millions of chickens and ducks, many in the
yards of rural or urban homes, raising the risk of more humans
becoming infected with the virus.