Indonesia says another child killed by avian flu

Avian Influenza (Bird Flu)

Jul 7, 2006 (CIDRAP News) – A 3-year-old Indonesian girl who died yesterday tested positive in a local laboratory for the H5N1 avian influenza virus, according to news services.

If her case is confirmed by a World Health Organization (WHO) laboratory in Hong Kong, she will be recorded as Indonesia’s 41st avian flu fatality. Only Vietnam, with 42 deaths, has had more fatal cases than Indonesia, which has had a total of 52 confirmed cases.

I Nyoman Kandun, an official with the Indonesian Ministry of Health, told Bloomberg News that the girl lived in Tangerang, west of Jakarta, where she may have contracted the virus from chickens in her neighborhood.

The girl died 9 hours after she was admitted to a Jakarta hospital, according to an Agence France-Presse report that quoted Runizar Roesin, a physician with the health ministry's avian flu center.

Indonesia's last previous H5N1 case was in a 5-year-old boy from the Tulungagung district in East Java province who died Jun 16, about 3 weeks after chicken deaths in his household, according to the WHO.

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