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Bird Flu Local Test kills an Indonesian Teenager
JAKARTA, Aug 9 (Reuters) – A 17-year-old Indonesian girl has died of bird flu, results from a local test showed, a health ministry official said. Nyoman Kandun, a director general at the Health Ministry, said tests on the teenage girl from North Jakarta, who died on Tuesday, were positive for bird flu. He did not elaborate how the girl got infected by the deadly virus.
The teenage girl’s death came hours after the earlier death of a 16-year-old boy from the outskirts of Jakarta was confirmed by local tests as also being from bird flu. If confirmed by a World Health Organisation-referred laboratory, the girl will be Indonesia’s 44th confirmed human bird flu death, the highest in the world.
Local tests are not considered definitive. Indonesia has recorded 42 confirmed deaths from bird flu, equalling Vietnam, where no one is known to have died of the disease this year. Human cases of bird flu have been rising steadily in Indonesia since its first known outbreak in poultry in late 2003.
Indonesia has been criticised for not doing enough to stamp out H5N1, which still remains essentially an animal disease but experts fear could spark a pandemic if it mutates into a form that can pass easily among people.
Source : http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/JAK207734.htm