Two more bird flu deaths

2006-08-08 17:05

Jakarta - Two Indonesian teenagers have died of bird flu, according to local test results that, if confirmed, would bring Indonesia's death toll from the disease to 44.

Normally reliable tests performed at a local laboratory showed that a boy and a girl, both 16, died on Monday and Tuesday of the illness, health officials said.

The H5N1 virus has killed at least 135 people worldwide since it began ravaging Asian poultry stocks in late 2003, according to WHO.

That figure does not include the latest deaths in Indonesia.

- AP