Local test confirms another death of bird flu in Indonesia
18/6/2006 10:17
Local laboratory examination has showed another Indonesian, a 14-year-old
boy, died of bird flu, a health official said in Jakarta yesterday.
"The
local test shows he is positively infected," Nyoman Kandun, director of the
Animal Disease and Health Control Department under the Health Ministry, told
Xinhua.
The victim's blood samples had been sent to the World Health
Organization (WHO) affiliated laboratory in Hong Kong for further test, said the
director.
The boy, who died on Wednesday in a hospital in the capital, once
had contact with dead chickens, he said.
According to the WHO, 39 out of 52
contracted people have died in Indonesia, Kandun said.
Experts feared that
the highly pathogenic H5N1 virus could mutate in a certain form that could
transmit from human to human and kill millions of people.
The avian influenza
has killed at least 128 people worldwide since it began ravaging Asian poultry
farms in late 2003.
Xinhua News
|
