Indonesia local test showed the tenth person death from bird flu, a director at the Health Ministry Hariadi Wibisono said Friday.

The director told Xinhua in telephone that the blood sample of the 39 year-old man was sent to the World Health Organization affiliated laboratory in Hong Kong for further test.

"The local test result was positive," he said. The man died earlier this week at a hospital in Jakarta.

It is unclear if he had contact with dead chickens.

Five others people survive from the H5N1 attacks in the country.

The highly pathogenic H5N1 strain is endemic in poultry in some parts of Asia, which killed nearly 70 people.

Experts fear the virus could mutate into a form that passes easily among humans, just like human influenza. If it does, millions could die because they would have no immunity.