Another 'bird flu' patient dies in Jakarta

Abdul Khalik, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta

The husband and his five-year-old daughter could not hide their grief while seeing the most important woman in their lives laid to rest on Wednesday.

The 25-year-old woman, who tested positive for avian influenza virus in a test conducted by the Ministry of Health laboratory, died on Tuesday evening of acute pneumonia worsened by liver disease.

Ilham Patu, spokesman and head of the bird flu surveillance unit at Sulianti Saroso Hospital in North Jakarta, where the woman had been treated for six days, said the resident of Kunciran Induk, Tangerang, died at 6:55 p.m. on Tuesday.

"We tried to assist her breathing but her lungs were so damaged that they could function at only 10 percent capacity. We are still waiting for confirmation from the WHO-appointed laboratory in Hong Kong to know if she really died from bird flu," he told The Jakarta Post.

The woman was treated at Tangerang hospital before being referred to Sulianti Saroso Infectious Diseases hospital.

Patu said that she arrived at the hospital in a critical condition.

A Ministry of Health laboratory immediately ran tests on her, and she was confirmed on Saturday to have been infected with bird flu.

The WHO laboratory has confirmed 12 bird flu cases in humans in Indonesia to date, with seven deaths since July.

A hospital in Bandung is currently treating a 16-year-old boy from Sumedang, a town in West Java, who was confirmed by the health ministry as suffering bird flu on Sunday.

The Sulianti Saroso hospital accepted a new patient, a five- year-old child, at 9 p.m. on Tuesday with bird flu symptoms.

As the number of human fatalities continues to rise in the capital, more infected birds and chickens continue to be found in more districts across Greater Jakarta.

A senior official at the Jakarta Animal Husbandry, Fisheries, and Maritime Affairs Agency, Adnan Ahmad, said that his office had found infected birds in all municipalities in Jakarta and subsequently culled hundreds of birds there.

"We have found infected birds in many subdistricts in South, East, Central, North, and West Jakarta after we conducted random checks there. We have culled hundreds of birds in the areas to prevent the virus from spreading to other areas and to humans," he told the Post.

The agency found dozens of birds with avian influenza last Wednesday in Ceger, Utan Kayu, Pondok Kelapa, Duren Sawit and Cipinang Melayu, all in East Jakarta, and Sunter Jaya and Kapuk in North and West Jakarta respectively.

Infected birds were found in Petojo, Central Jakarta and Cilincing, North Jakarta last Thursday, while on Saturday, infected birds were found in Pegangsaan, Central Jakarta.

Most of the bird flu patients are believed to have been infected by sick birds in their neighborhoods.