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Another Indonesia woman dies of bird flu: ministry

Posted on: Saturday, 11 February 2006, 04:40 CST

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.

Source: REUTERS

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