Indonesia links infected bird droppings to three deaths

Three family members who died of bird flu earlier this month were infected by chicken droppings that carried the H5N1 strain of the virus, the Indonesian government said today as it scrambled to contain the disease’s spread.

The three, a 38-year-old government official and his two young daughters, are the only people known to have died of bird flu in Indonesia.

Authorities earlier said they had no known contact with poultry, but since found chicken faeces in their backyard that “positively contained the bird flu virus”, said Hari Priyono, an agriculture ministry spokesman.

Two other people are under observation at a Jakarta hospital, but health officials have denied they contracted the HN51 virus, saying they had no symptoms of the disease and were being kept there as a precaution.

Indonesia has vowed to do everything possible to combat the disease that has devastated poultry stocks across the region, killing or forcing the slaughter of hundreds of millions of chickens and ducks since 2003. It also has jumped to humans, claiming 57 lives in Asia.

But yesterday, the government acknowledged it lacked the money to implement a mass-culling of poultry and pigs in areas hit by bird flu. For now, only infected animals will be killed.

Officials wearing masks and white chemical suits destroyed 800 sick chickens today in Cicurug, a village 40 miles south of Jakarta, knocking them out with injections, then slashing their throats and throwing them into a fire.