2 more die of suspected bird flu

Abdul Khalik, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The government announced on Sunday that a teenager who died on Tuesday was the sixth human fatality of avian flu, while two women suspected of having the virus died on Saturday.

The bird flu surveillance head of the Sulianti Saroso Infectious Diseases Hospital, Ilham Patu, said laboratory tests on samples taken from the girl who died on Nov. 8, identified as Siti Sarah, confirmed she had the bird flu.

"We are still waiting for the results of tests conducted in the WHO-sanctioned laboratory in Hong Kong," Ilham said. If the test comes back positive, WHO will record Siti as the sixth Indonesian bird flu death in humans.

WHO has so far recorded nine positive bird flu patients in Indonesia, five of whom have died.

A joint government team has taken blood samples from members of Siti's family in Utan Kayu, East Jakarta. The team initially faced resistance from the family. The 16-year-old girl died at Agung Hospital in Manggarai, South Jakarta, of acute pneumonia.

Ilham said the two other patients, one of them a 13-year-old girl, died of respiratory problems.

"Both displayed bird flu symptoms, including high fever, cough and acute pneumonia. We could not do much as they were admitted here in a critical condition," he told The Jakarta Post on Sunday. He refused to identify the two.

He said the Ministry of Health's laboratory tests on the 13- year-old girl came back negative for bird flu while the result on the blood test on the other patient was still pending.

Blood samples of the two have also been sent to the Hong Kong laboratory.

The teenage girl, who lived in Pondok Kelapa, East Jakarta, was transferred to the referral hospital on Thursday after being treated for one week in the Islamic Hospital in Pondok Kopi, also in East Jakarta. She was unconscious upon admittance and remained so until she died early on Saturday.

The other woman was admitted on Friday in a critical condition after being treated for several days in Mitra Kemayoran Hospital in Central Jakarta. She died on Saturday evening.

Being a suspected bird flu patient, her remains were encased in plastic before being laid in a coffin as her family took it for burial to her hometown in Purwokerto, Central Java, early on Sunday.

Sulianti Saroso Hospital is treating an eight-year-old patient, the brother of a bird flu fatality in late October, who has tested positive for the virus.

But Ilham expressed confidence that the boy could be cured, learning from the cases of two other children with bird flu who had been sent home.

"Both of them have gone home because their condition is improving. These two cases show that we can heal bird flu patients as long as they are admitted quickly to the hospital before their lungs become infected," he said.