Govt confirms 4th fatality from bird flu

Govt confirms 4th fatality from bird flu

Adianto P. Simamora and Muninggar Sri Saraswati, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The government announced on Tuesday the fourth fatality of avian influenza following confirmation from the World Health Organization (WHO)-appointed laboratory in Hong Kong.

The latest victim was identified by his initial as SW, 23, a man who resided in Bogor, West Java. He died on Sept. 30 at the Sulianti Saroso Infectious Diseases Hospital in North Jakarta.

"It's an old case, but we received the confirmation only on Monday," Director of Human-Animal Transferable Diseases Hariadi Wibisono told Antara.

He gave his assurance, however, that people who had contact with the victim had tested negative for the virus.

The laboratory also confirmed that a four-year-old patient from Lampung is infected with the virus.

The WHO announcement brings the number of confirmed infections for bird flu virus to five out of 44 suspected cases including the fatalities.

The H5N1 strain of the virus has killed at least 60 people in Asia since late 2003, most of them in Vietnam.

WHO country director Georg Petersen said Indonesia's latest bird flu victim had a history of contact with birds.

"As far as we know this H5N1 is circulating in birds in Indonesia. As long as that happens we expect there will be occasional infections in humans. It doesn't mean the situation has changed," Petersen told AFP.

"It means we have to continue good surveillance both in humans and in animals."  Meanwhile, three Japanese experts in laboratory diagnosis are expected to arrive in Jakarta on Wednesday to help Indonesia contain the virus.  "The three experts are bringing with them the first batch of medical equipment and will start working on Thursday," Japanese Embassy Minister Masafumi Kuroki told reporters on Tuesday.  The first team will stay in Jakarta for eight days, he said.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) plans to send a team of experts to Indonesia to help the country combat the virus at its source, by organizing a house-to-house search for infected birds on the densely populated island of Java.

The government has declared an "extraordinary" outbreak status of bird flu, allowing it to force people suspected of having bird flu to be admitted to hospital among other measures.

A scientist accused the government of covering up an initial outbreak of bird flu in the country and of secretly using untested vaccines in a bid to halt its spread.

Chairul Nidom, a senior Indonesian microbiologist who first revealed the bird flu outbreak in January last year, said the government kept secret an outbreak among poultry for about six months in 2003.

"The government has in the past often been tardy in anticipating outbreaks and it seems that old habits die hard. Little has changed," he told AFP, saying that the cover-up was partly due to outside pressure but he refused to say who had pressured the government.