New bird flu death in Indonesia

An Indonesian woman has died of suspected bird flu in a village that has been hard hit by the disease, a hospital official said today, as health workers investigated a new possible cluster of the H5N1 virus.

Euis Lina died last night – three hours after she was admitted to Dr Slamet Hospital in West Java province with symptoms of bird flu, said Yati Maryati, the hospital’s director, who was awaiting laboratory test results to see if she had contracted the virus.

The woman was from Cikelet, a village 150km southeast of the capital Jakarta, where at least one person was killed by the disease and another sickened. Four other people died before tests could be taken to see if they had bird flu.

The H5N1 virus has killed at least 140 people worldwide since it began ravaging Asian poultry stocks in late 2003 – 45 of them in Indonesia, the world’s worst affected country, according to the World Health Organisation.