|
JAKARTA - A 30-YEAR-OLD man has died of bird flu, the health ministry said Thursday, bringing the toll to 98 in the nation worst hit by the H5N1 virus.
'The patient died at 7.30 am on Jan 24, 2008 (2330 GMT Wednesday) at Persahabatan hospital, Jakarta,' a ministry statement said.
Two laboratory tests on the man earlier in the week confirmed he was infected with the virus.
Two positive results from tests on blood and tissue samples are needed before Indonesian authorities confirm a bird flu infection.
'(The) total number of cumulative avian influenza human cases in Indonesia is 120 with 98 deaths,' the ministry statement said.
The head of Persahabatan hospital's bird flu team, Muchtar Ihsan, told reporters on Tuesday that the patient was believed to have contracted the virus from birds in his neighbourhood.
'It has been reported that there are swallow nests and poultry farms around the patient?s home,' Mr Ihsan said.
The man was the eighth person from Tangerang confirmed to have the disease since October 2007. The other seven also died.
Humans are typically infected with bird flu by coming into direct contact with infected poultry, but experts fear the H5N1 virus may mutate into a form easily transmissible between humans, sparking a deadly global pandemic.
The concern stems from past influenza pandemics. A pandemic in 1918, just after the end of World War I, killed 20 million people worldwide.
The virus is now endemic in birds across nearly all of Indonesia's 33 provinces. -- AFP
| 
