Bird flu: More people die
2006-05-17 10:44
Jakarta - The World Health Organisation on Wednesday confirmed five more bird flu deaths in Indonesia, raising to 30 the number of human fatalities from the H5N1 strain of the virus in the sprawling archipelago.
WHO's Sari Setiogi said that four of the new deaths were members of one family in North Sumatra province and one was in the country's second largest city, Surabaya, in East Java province.
Setiogi said that the fifth fatality was of a woman who died on May 12 in a hospital in Surabaya, the provincial capital.
Last year, Indonesia overtook Thailand as the country with the second-highest number of bird flu death toll after Vietnam, which had 42.
Indonesia govt criticised
While those countries had recently reported success in containing the virus, it continued to rapidly spread across Indonesia.
The virus had infected poultry populations in 27 of 33 Indonesian provinces, including easternmost Papua and the resort island of Bali, and the government had been criticised for refusing to carry out mass bird slaughtering operations in infected areas.
The outbreaks in Papua and North Sumatra had been reported only recently. In North Sumatra, eight members of a single family were infected and six of them had since died. Health authorities were awaiting conclusive test results on the sixth death.
Govt campaigns 'aggressive'
Vietnam and Thailand had seen sharp decreases in the circulation of the H5N1 virus in poultry populations in recent months - thanks to aggressive government campaigns to combat the virus. The number of human cases also had come to a near standstill.
On Monday, a senior official at the United Nations' food and agricultural organisation criticised Indonesian health authorities for not taking decisive action to combat the virus' spread and for failing to increase public awareness of the disease.
The multiple infections, or clusters, were closely monitored by officials who feared the disease could become more infectious.
The virus was believed to be transmitted only from birds to humans and not human to human.
- AP