Local tests have confirmed that two Indonesian teenagers died of bird flu virus, bringing the country's death toll to a world record of 45, a newspaper reported today.

A 16-year-old female died of bird flu Tuesday after being treated in a hospital in the Jakarta suburb of Tangerang, where bird flu is considered endemic in poultry and has already killed several people.

Local tests also confirmed that a 16-year-old resident of Bekasi, just east of Jakarta, who died late Monday had H5N1. He was suspected of coming into contact with sick chickens near his home, reported The Jakarta Post.

Although the government decided last week that local tests were adequate to confirm H5N1, specimens from the two patients were sent for scientific research to the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia.

The Health Ministry's director general for communicable diseases, I Nyoman Kandun, said medical personnel were doing their best to detect new human infections and provided essential care in the critical early stage, but it was insufficient to contain the disease's spread.

"As long as the problem in the downstream, the poultry, has not been addressed, the number of human fatalities will keep on increasing," he said.

Almost all of Indonesia's confirmed cases have been traced to contact with infected poultry.

Calling it a "long and winding road", Kandun acknowledged the difficulty of the problem, especially due to ignorance about basic hygiene in poultry handling that left Indonesians prone to a host of other animal-borne disease.

"They should at least care about their own safety when in contact with chickens," he said, such as hand washing and wearing masks.

Separately Tuesday, Vice President Jusuf Kalla asked all regional leaders to intensify their efforts to fight bird flu.

"Regional heads, either governors or regents, should not hesitate to take harsh measures, such as mass culls, seizure of animals believed to have transmitted the virus to humans and an anti-bird flu campaign to free the country from the epidemic," he said in a meeting with all governors, regents and mayors in Jakarta.

Kalla said Indonesia's mounting death toll -- now two higher than Vietnam -- was nothing to be ashamed about.

"It's logical if the number of victims is higher in Indonesia than in Vietnam because the country's population is far higher than Vietnam's," he said.