A three-year-old Indonesian girl has died of bird flu near Jakarta in the latest case of the virus to hit the sprawling country, a senior health ministry official said today.

The Indonesian government has confirmed another death in the country due to bird flu, an official said today.

Indonesia’s human bird flu death toll climbed to 37 today after the World Health Organisation confirmed that an 18-year-old boy died from the H5N1 virus, a senior health ministry official said.

Indonesian and World Health Organisation officials today were investigating eight suspected human bird flu cases, four of them fatal, in a district on Sumatra island.

A man died of bird flu in one of the glitziest neighbourhoods of Indonesia’s capital, while a self-employed vendor in a remote Chinese village was sickened by the disease, authorities said today.

Tests showed a 35-year-old man died of bird flu in Indonesia, a health official said today, but the results are still to be confirmed by a Hong Kong laboratory.

The death toll from Indonesia’s bird flu outbreak has risen to six, as the government announced it has ordered more than half a million tablets of anti-viral medication to help fight the disease.

INDONESIA confirmed its fourth human death from bird flu yesterday and said another person was suspected of having the virus as global alarm grew that the disease would mutate and become a pandemic.

Indonesia on Friday confirmed its fourth human death from the bird flu virus, taking the death toll in Asia to 63, and said it was investigating whether a neighbour of the victim was also sickened by the disease.