Jakarta chicken vendor has bird flu

JAKARTA (Reuters) – An Indonesian chicken seller in Jakarta
is in hospital after being infected with the H5N1 bird flu
virus according to local test results, a senior Health Ministry
official said on Wednesday.

Hariadi Wibisono, director of control of animal-borne
diseases at the ministry, said the 22-year-old man was being
treated in a Jakarta hospital designated for bird flu patients.

“Local tests show he was positive for bird flu. He is a
chicken vendor in a traditional market,” Wibisono said, adding
blood samples had been sent to a Hong Kong laboratory
recognized by the World Health Organization for confirmation.

Indonesia has had 14 confirmed deaths from bird flu and
five cases where patients have survived.

Bird flu has killed at least 82 people in six countries
since late 2003.

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.

Indonesia’s confirmed cases include two children from the
same family in West Java province who died this month.

They were Indonesia’s fifth cluster of cases, where people
living in close proximity have fallen ill. Two other members of
the same family, a 14-year-old sister and the 43-year-old
father, remain hospitalized with respiratory symptoms and
samples from these cases are also being tested.

There has been no evidence of human-to-human transmission
in the deaths of the two children and officials have said dead
chickens were found in their neighborhood.

Jakarta is also awaiting confirmation from local tests that
showed a 39-year-old man died of bird flu earlier this month.

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