November 21, 2005

WHO to confirm if Indonesian had died of bird flu
 

Local tests showed a 35-year-old man died of bird flu in Indonesia, a health official said Sunday, but the results are still to be confirmed by a Hong Kong laboratory.

The man died at a private hospital Saturday in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta, said a senior Health Ministry official, I Nyoman Kandun.

Repeated local tests have turned up positive for bird flu, he said, but blood and swab samples have been sent to a WHO sanctioned laboratory in Hong Kong. Results are expected later this week.

"Previous tests like this are usually confirmed by Hong Kong (as positive)," Kandun said.

Outbreaks of the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu have devastated poultry flocks across Asia since 2003 and jumped to humans, killing at least 67-with seven confirmed deaths in Indonesia since July.

Most people who have died or been sickened by bird flu had contact with sick birds. But international health experts fear the virus could mutate into a form that is easily transmissible between people and spark a global pandemic.

Kandun did not know if the man who died Saturday lived near chickens, or how he might have caught the disease.