Two more human bird flu deaths confirmed in Indonesia

The World Health Organisation has confirmed two more human bird flu deaths in Indonesia – one of them from a family on Sumatra island that has already lost four people to the disease.

“The tests came back positive for the H5N1 virus last night,” said WHO spokeswoman Sari Setiogi said.

The H5N1 virus has killed 124 people worldwide – a quarter of them in Indonesia, which saw its official toll jump to 32 this week when WHO-laboratories in Hong Kong confirmed the five Sumatra deaths and two on Java island.

The latest confirmations were for two boys, one of them a 12-year-old from the eastern outskirts of Jakarta, a health ministry spokesman said today. The age of the other was not known.