Indonesians deaths bring bird toll to 82

According to a senior official at the Indonesian Health Ministry, a Hong Kong laboratory has confirmed that two children from the same Indonesian family have died from the H5N1 strain of bird flu this month.

The deaths last week take Indonesia's toll to 14 confirmed deaths from bird flu, and five cases where patients have survived.

Hariadi Wibisono, director of control of animal-borne diseases at the ministry,says the two cases have been confirmed positive from a Hong Kong laboratory, which is recognised by the World Health Organisation (WHO).

The children, a 4-year-old boy and a 13-year-old girl were from the town of Indramayu in West Java.

Their father has also been admitted to hospital with suspected bird flu, but test results have yet to be confirmed regarding him.

The family is Indonesia's fifth cluster of cases, where people living in close proximity have all become ill.

At present there is no evidence of human-to-human transmission in the deaths of the children and officials have reported that dead chickens were found in their area at Indramayu, which is 175 km east of Jakarta.

Indonesia is apparently also waiting for confirmation of local tests that showed a 39-year-old man died of bird flu earlier this month.

The H5N1 virus remains a disease carried by sick birds and is not known to be transmitted between humans, but experts fear it could mutate and develop that ability and set off a global pandemic that might kill millions of people.

The death toll from bird flu now stands at 82 people in six countries since late 2003.

Bird flu is endemic in poultry in parts of Asia, and has affected birds in two-thirds of provincial Indonesia, which has an archipelago of 17,000 islands and 220 million people.