JAKARTA, Oct 31, 2007 (AFP) - The parents of a three-year-old Indonesian boy infected with bird flu have defied hospital orders that he stay in isolation and taken him home, a hospital official said Wednesday.

The boy from Tangerang, a satellite city west of the capital Jakarta, stayed in hospital for just half a day last Saturday, said Sardikin Giriputro, deputy director of Sulianti Saroso hospital.

"We had no choice but to let the boy leave the hospital as his parents insisted on taking their child home," Giriputro told AFP.

He said a patient should remain in isolation until a test showed the infection was over.

Doctors wanted him to remain in isolation to ensure there would be no possibility of human-to-human infection, he said.

Giriputro added that the boy was under home observation by medics from a health centre in Tangerang and Wednesday's report said that his condition was improving.

The mother of the boy, Muslimah, told the online Detikcom news agency however that he was in good health and medics only visited initially.

"At the beginning, some doctors came here, but they haven't come anymore...My son has recovered, he's now in good health. He isn't taking medicine anymore," she was quoted as saying.

She added that her son had been playing with other neighbourhood children.

Indonesia has reported 111 cases of bird flu, 89 of which have been fatal - the highest number of any nation.

The H5N1 strain of bird flu is endemic in birds across nearly all of Indonesia. Scientists worry that the virus could mutate into a form more easily transmissible between humans, sparking a global pandemic.