Another Indonesia woman dies of bird flu: ministry

JAKARTA (Reuters) – An Indonesian woman who local tests
several days ago showed had the H5N1 bird flu virus, has died
at a specialist Jakarta hospital, a senior Health Ministry
official said on Saturday.

The death of the 27-year-old woman came a day after another
woman who was also declared after local tests as a positive
bird flu case died in the same hospital.

Blood samples of the two women, who both lived near
Jakarta, have been sent to a Hong Kong laboratory recognized by
the World Health Organization (WHO) for confirmation.

Indonesia has had 16 WHO-confirmed deaths from bird flu and
seven confirmed cases where patients have survived.

Hariadi Wibisono, director of control of animal-borne
diseases at the ministry, said the latest woman to die had been
in critical condition since she was admitted last week at
Sulianti Saroso hospital, the designated bird flu treatment
center in Jakarta.

“Her condition went up and down in the hospital until she
died last night. A few days ago, local tests showed she was a
positive case but we are still waiting for confirmation,” he
told Reuters.

The two women are not related, but both come from the
suburb area of Bekasi, just east of the Indonesian capital.

While it mostly affects birds, the H5N1 strain of avian flu
has killed at least 88 people in seven countries since 2003,
according to the WHO.

Experts fear the virus will mutate to become easily passed
between humans, triggering a pandemic. The current H5N1 strain
of bird flu has not mutated.

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, making it likely more humans
will become infected with the virus.

For financial, social and political reasons, Indonesia has
been reluctant to undertake the mass culling of fowl seen in
some other countries, concentrating instead on selective
culling, and on public education and hygiene measures aimed at
prevention.