Indonesia reports new case of bird flu

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.

The 22-year-old market seller from south Jakarta was being treated in the capital’s infectious disease hospital, said senior health official Hariadi Wibisono. Details of his condition was not released.

Local tests confirmed he had contracted bird flu, but blood and swab samples from the man had been sent to World Health Organisation sanctioned-laboratory in Hong Kong for further confirmation, said Wibisono.

The H5N1 strain of bird flu has killed hundreds of millions of chickens and ducks since it started ravaging poultry stocks across Asia in 2003, also jumping to humans and killing at least 80 people in Asia and in Turkey.

Almost all the deaths have been linked to contact with infected poultry.

The WHO has so far confirmed 19 cases in Indonesia, 14 of them fatal.