Link found between bird flu victims, poultry

Link found between bird flu victims, poultry

Associated Press, Jakarta

Investigators have found a link between the country's six human bird flu fatalities and poultry living near their homes, Minister of Agriculture Anton Apriyantono said on Tuesday.

The H5N1 strain of bird flu has swept through poultry populations in many parts of Asia since 2003, jumping to humans and killing at least 65 people regionwide and resulting in the deaths of tens of millions of birds.

Most human cases have been linked to contact with sick birds.

"We can't be sure how the victims were infected by poultry around their house, but there is definitely a link," Anton told reporters.

The government has put the bird flu outbreak under extraordinary status to focus attention on the outbreak in the world's fourth most populous nation.

It would also launch a mass cull of chickens in "highly infected areas."

The World Health Organization has warned that the virus could mutate into a form that spreads easily among humans, possibly triggering a global pandemic that could kill millions.

The current bird flu outbreak in Indonesia has raised international concern over possible further outbreaks of the disease, which has killed 66 people in four Asian countries since late 2003 and has been found in birds in Russia and Europe.

Besides Indonesia, bird flu has killed 44 people in Vietnam, 12 people in Thailand and four in Cambodia.

Officials have called for international cooperation to combat the disease, complaining they lack the money for vaccinating poultry and carrying out mass culls in bird flu-infected areas.

In addition to the six fatalities, dozens of people in the country have been hospitalized with symptoms of the disease.

Australian officials will meet with senior Indonesian government officials as well as officials from the WHO and U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization this week in Jakarta, Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said on Tuesday.

Canberra announced last week that it would share with its poorer Asian neighbors its stockpile of a key anti-viral drug in the event of a bird flu pandemic in humans.

A donation of 50,000 courses of oseltamivir, commercially known as Tamiflu, are due to arrive in Indonesia this week and will be distributed to 44 specialized bird flu hospitals, Downer said.