DENPASAR: Indonesia confirmed its first human bird flu death on the resort island of Bali on Monday, bringing the nation’s overall toll to 82 and raising fears of an impact on tourism.

A 29-year-old woman who died in a hospital in Bali’s capital Denpasar on Sunday was carrying the deadly H5N1 strain of the virus, said Bayu Krisnamurti, head of Indonesia’s national bird flu commission, in Jakarta. “Both are positive, (tests) from the Eikman Institute and the health ministry’s lab,” he told a press briefing. In Indonesia, two tests must be returned positive before a human infection is confirmed.

The woman’s five-year-old daughter died on August 3 but samples were not taken from her, while a two-year-old neighbour was admitted to hospital on Sunday and is suspected of being infected, Krisnamurti said.

Ningrum, a doctor from the Bird Flu Information Centre, said that the five-year-old “was diagnosed as suffering from pneumonia, and chickens which died at the house were positively infected with bird flu.

“From the symptoms and the dead birds, we can assume that the child also had bird flu,” she told AFP.

The mother and daughter were from the northwest of the island, far from major tourist centres, but the death may be another blow to tourism to Bali, which is recovering following deadly Islamic militant bombings in 2002 and 2005.

“We’ll do intensive monitoring. The central government will help the Balinese government get Bali free of bird flu,” Krisnamurti vowed, adding that culling of poultry had already taken place in July in the affected area.