WHO confirms 25th bird flu death in Indonesia: official
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_asiapacific/view/207249/1/.html
JAKARTA : Indonesia's 25th bird flu death has been confirmed by World Health Organisation tests, a health ministry official said Monday.
"We were contacted by the WHO office in Jakarta yesterday over the laboratory results of the 30-year-old man who died on April 26, which came out positive," Joko Suyono of the health ministry's bird flu information centre told AFP.
"He is confirmed as Indonesia's 25th bird flu fatality."
The man, a resident of Jakarta's satellite town of Tangerang, had a history of contact with sick poultry and died at the capital's main hospital for the treatment of bird flu patients.
Indonesia, the world's fourth most populous nation, has witnessed more bird flu deaths than any other country this year and has the second highest number of fatalities reported in the world since 2003, after Vietnam.
WHO's Asia chief last weekend warned that the sprawling archipelago nation needed to work harder at the grassroots level to act against H5N1.
The head of the World Organisation for Animal Health warned last month meanwhile that Indonesia was a "time-bomb" because of its failure to eradicate the virus from numerous areas.
Most cases in Indonesia have been in the capital and its surroundings, where many people live in close proximity to poultry despite the urban environment.
Experts fear that bird flu, which has killed more than 100 people since late 2003, mostly in Asia, may mutate into a form that can pass easily between humans, sparking a deadly pandemic. - AFP/ch
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_asiapacific/view/207249/1/.html
JAKARTA : Indonesia's 25th bird flu death has been confirmed by World Health Organisation tests, a health ministry official said Monday.
"We were contacted by the WHO office in Jakarta yesterday over the laboratory results of the 30-year-old man who died on April 26, which came out positive," Joko Suyono of the health ministry's bird flu information centre told AFP.
"He is confirmed as Indonesia's 25th bird flu fatality."
The man, a resident of Jakarta's satellite town of Tangerang, had a history of contact with sick poultry and died at the capital's main hospital for the treatment of bird flu patients.
Indonesia, the world's fourth most populous nation, has witnessed more bird flu deaths than any other country this year and has the second highest number of fatalities reported in the world since 2003, after Vietnam.
WHO's Asia chief last weekend warned that the sprawling archipelago nation needed to work harder at the grassroots level to act against H5N1.
The head of the World Organisation for Animal Health warned last month meanwhile that Indonesia was a "time-bomb" because of its failure to eradicate the virus from numerous areas.
Most cases in Indonesia have been in the capital and its surroundings, where many people live in close proximity to poultry despite the urban environment.
Experts fear that bird flu, which has killed more than 100 people since late 2003, mostly in Asia, may mutate into a form that can pass easily between humans, sparking a deadly pandemic. - AFP/ch