Asia-Pacific

Indonesian human bird flu death toll rises to 48

(AP)
Updated: 2006-09-09 11:05

The World Health Organization has recognized two more cases of bird flu in Indonesia, one of them fatal, bringing the country's confirmed death toll from the virus to 48.

The cases, which occurred last year, were added to the WHO tally because of a recent change in the testing standards that the body sets for cases of the H5N1 virus. They were already included in Indonesia's Health Ministry tally.

"WHO is adding two cases in Indonesia, dating back ... to 2005," the WHO said in a statement received Saturday. "The retrospectively confirmed cases bring the total in Indonesia to 63. Of these cases, 48 have been fatal."

Indonesia has tallied the most deaths from bird flu in the world.

The retrospectively confirmed fatal case was an 8-year-old female who died on 14 July 2005 on the outskirts of Jakarta. She was part of a cluster of deaths in one family that made up Indonesia's first reported cases of the virus, the WHO statement said.

In the second case, a 45-year-old male from central Java province was sickened but recovered, the WHO said.

The H5N1 strain of bird flu has ravaged poultry stocks, mainly in Asia, since late 2003. It also has killed at least 143 people worldwide, according to the WHO. Most human deaths have been traced to contact with sick birds, the virus does not spread easily from person to person.

Experts fear that the virus could mutate into a more transmissible form, potentially causing a deadly global pandemic.