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.

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.