Bird flu: Indonesia’s death toll rises

Jakarta – A three-year-old boy from the Indonesian capital Jakarta who died last week had bird flu, the health ministry said on Monday, bringing the toll to 105 in the nation worst hit by the disease.

The boy fell ill on February 5 and died last Friday at a Jakarta hospital, the ministry said in a statement posted on its website.

“Laboratory results of studies on throat swabs and blood samples showed that (the boy) was positively infected with bird flu,” the ministry said.

Local media reports have said that the family thought the boy was sick with regular flu and took him to a local clinic.

The home of the victim was close to at least five areas where chickens are slaughtered or are collected before being transferred from surrounding areas, the ministry statement said.

Experts fear that the virus, which is usually spread directly from a bird to a human, could mutate into a form easily transmissible between people, sparking a deadly global pandemic.

Eleven people have died of bird flu in Indonesia in 2007, 10 of them from Jakarta and its surrounds. – Sapa-AFP