Two Indonesian women died last week of bird flu, according to tests by a World Health Organisation-sanctioned laboratory, the Health Ministry said today.

Two Indonesian women from the same town have contracted bird flu and are being treated in a hospital, a senior health ministry official said today.

Indonesia reported another suspected case of bird flu today as World Health Organisation officials visited markets in the teeming capital to try to find ways to contain the virus.

Two Indonesian children from the same family have died from bird flu, the World Health Organisation has confirmed, bringing that country’s toll from the virus to 14, the government said today.

VILLAGERS handed over chickens and other fowl for slaughter yesterday as Turkey stepped up efforts to stem the spread of a deadly strain of bird flu.

SCIENTISTS yesterday reported on the first confirmed case of a human death caused by H5N1 bird flu in mainland China.

A 16-year-old patient tested positive for a virulent strain of bird flu, bringing the number of Indonesians infected by the virus to 12 – seven of whom died, a health official said today.

Indonesia’s bird-flu toll rose to seven today with the confirmed deaths of two young women, as the cash-strapped government acknowledged it couldn’t fight a widening outbreak alone.

A bird flu outbreak in northern China that sparked the culling of about 370,000 birds lies along a migration route that spans from East Asia to Australia, it was reported today, as officials continued killing thousands of birds east of Beijing.

An Indonesian man has died of bird flu, raising the country’s human toll to four, officials said today, as international health experts prepared to go house-to-house to search for infected poultry.

An Indonesian poultry worker has tested positive for bird flu, in the country’s first human case of the disease that has so far killed 54 people in south east Asia, health officials said today.