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Indonesian vendor dies of bird flu – hospital The Star, 27 Jan 2006 |
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JAKARTA (Reuters) - An Indonesian chicken seller whom local tests showed had been infected with the H5N1 bird flu virus has died, a hospital official said on Thursday. If confirmed by outside laboratories recognized by the World Health Organization (WHO), the case would take total known deaths in Indonesia from avian flu to 15. "The 22-year-old man died at 2 p.m. He was the vendor from a traditional market and the only positive case that we were treating today," said Ilham Patu, a spokesman of the Jakarta hospital designated to deal with bird flu patients. On Wednesday, the health ministry said the man worked as a chicken vendor in a Jakarta market. The latest death comes as WHO drew attention to the threat posed by Indonesia's traditional markets and urged that hygiene and sanitation standards be improved. |
The global health body has called for preventive measures included limiting contact between humans and poultry in markets, as well as better access to water and improved waste management. The H5N1 virus is not known to pass easily between humans at the moment, but experts fear it could develop that ability and set off a global pandemic that might kill millions of people. Asia remains the epicentre of the fight against bird flu, although the virus has this month killed children in Turkey as it spreads westwards to the edge of Europe.
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Bird flu has killed at least 83 people in six countries since late 2003. The highly pathogenic strain of bird flu has affected birds in two-thirds of the provinces in Indonesia, an archipelago of about 17,000 islands and 220 million people. The country has millions of chickens and ducks, many in the yards of rural or urban homes, raising the risk of more humans becoming infected with the virus.
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