Indonesia's bird-flu death toll rises to seven

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.

Tests sent to a Hong Kong laboratory for a 20-year-old woman and a 16-year-old girl came back positive for the H5N1 bird flu virus, said Sari Setiogi, a spokeswoman for the World Health Organisation.