Kyodo World Service, August 13th, 2007
A 29-year-old woman has died of the H5N1 strain of bird flu,
bringing the human death toll from bird flu in Indonesia to 82, the
Health Ministry said Monday.
The ministry's bird flu center said tests from the Health
Research and Development Agency and the independent Eijkman
Foundation showed that the woman from Jembrana District's Dangin
Tukad Aya hamlet on the resort island of Bali died of the disease
Sunday.
She is the first human case of the H5N1 virus on the island.
Joko Suyono of the center told Kyodo News that the woman began
to exhibit bird flu symptoms on Aug. 3 but was only hospitalized four
days later.
On Saturday, the Animal Husbandry Agency at the Agricultural
Ministry confirmed poultry around her house and others in the hamlet
had been infected by the H5N1 virus.
''We suspect that she was infected by the virus through her
chickens,'' Suyono said.
Last month, the woman's 5-year-old daughter fell ill with bird
flu symptoms after playing with the chickens and died a few days
later. Doctors, however, failed to take her tissue samples and could
not confirm whether the girl died of bird flu, according to the
official.
Bird flu has infected at least 319 people in 12 countries since
its reemergence in December 2003, with 192 of them having died,
according to WHO statistics.
Indonesia leads the WHO table, followed by Vietnam with 42
fatalities and Thailand with 17. The other affected countries are
Azerbaijan, Cambodia, China, Djibouti, Egypt, Iraq, Laos, Nigeria,
and Turkey.
