Jakarta confirms 20^th bird flu death
The Star, 26 Feb 2006

JAKARTA: Bird flu has killed its 20^th human victim in Indonesia, a 27-year-old woman, according to tests by the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, an Indonesian health ministry official said yesterday.

The announcement came a day after the country launched house-to-house checks on poultry in the capital Jakarta, where 600 birds have been culled in a bid to halt the spread of the avian flu.

“We have received the test result from CDC Atlanta. Yulia (the victim) was positive”, said Hariadi Wibisono, director-general of control of animal-borne disease at the health ministry.

The 27-year-old woman died last Monday after being admitted to the Sulianti Saroso hospital in Jakarta, which is designated to treat patients showing bird flu symptoms.

A hospital spokesman had said the woman had contact with dead chickens in her neighborhood.

This year alone there have been nine fatalities in Indonesia’s confirmed tally from the H5N1 virus, making Indonesia the country with the most bird flu deaths so far this year.

Many of the 90 victims of bird flu globally have had direct or indirect contact  with  chickens,  but  there   are

fears the virus will mutate into a strain easily passed among people, causing a pandemic in which millions could die.

As part of the prevention drive, hundreds of inspectors continued yesterday to scour the sprawling capital and spray disinfectant in bird cages and chicken coops.

The government has resisted the mass culling of fowl seen in some other nations, citing the expense and the impracticality in a country where the keeping of a few chickens or ducks in backyards of homes is widely practiced in cities as well as the countryside. --- Reuters.