Young boy dies of bird flu in Indonesia

A three-year-old boy has died of bird flu in central Indonesia, a senior health official said today.

Meanwhile, a man who died in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong may also have had the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu, the Hong Kong government said.

Blood and swab samples for the child – who died this week in a hospital in Semarang, Central Java province – have been sent to a World Health Organisation-sanctioned laboratory in Hong Kong for confirmation, said Hariadi Wibisono.

If those tests come back positive, the country’s human bird flu death toll would officially climb to 21 – second only to Vietnam, which has 42.

The two countries together account for two-thirds of all human deaths from the H5N1 strain of bird flu, which has ravaged poultry stocks across Asia since 2003 and recently jumped to Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

The Indonesian toddler – like most other people infected by bird flu - appeared to have been in contact with sick chickens, though the source of infection was still being investigated, Wibisono said.

Health experts fear the H5N1 virus could mutate into a form that is easily transmitted between humans, sparking a pandemic that could kill millions worldwide.

They are closely watching Indonesia, which is seen as a potential flashpoint because of its high density of poultry and people. All of the country’s human deaths have occurred in the last nine months.

The government was accused of moving too slowly to stamp out the disease when it first appeared in poultry two years ago and has so far resisted mass slaughters of chickens in bird flu-infected areas.

International experts say culling is the best way to contain the disease’s spread.

The man who died in China lived in Guangzhou city – just across the border from Hong Kong. He developed fever and pneumonia on February 22 and died on March 2, the statement, released late yesterday, said.

The man had repeatedly visited a local market to carry out a survey and spent a long time near where chickens were slaughtered, China’s official Xinhua News Agency reported today.

Mainland China has reported 14 human bird flu infections since October, including eight deaths.