Another bird flu victim in Indonesia takes the death toll to 86

Oct 2 2007

The death toll in Indonesia from the deadly bird flu virus has now reached 86.

According to the Indonesian health ministry, a 21-year-old man from West Jakarta has died of bird flu.

The man apparently became ill on September 18th but was not taken to hospital until a week later and died on Sunday.

Officials say by that time he was already suffering from pneumonia and arrived at the hospital too late for any treatment to be effective.

Though experts are investigating how the man contracted the virus, it is unclear how he could have come into contact with sick poultry as keeping backyard poultry has been banned by the Jakarta government since February.

The measure was introduced to control an outbreak at the beginning of the year in the capital where four people died.

However bird flu is endemic in the bird populations in almost all nearly all of Indonesia, and in many areas backyard chickens live in close proximity to people.

Almost all cases of bird flu to date have been the result of contact with infected poultry but experts are on alert watching for signs that the virus is mutating enabling it to be transmitted from human to human; this could then trigger a pandemic.

Indonesia has the highest death toll from bird flu worldwide and of the 107 confirmed cases 86 have been fatal.