A 35-year-old woman with bird flu symptoms from an Indonesian village which has seen a number of other confirmed or suspected cases of the disease in humans has died, REUTERS quoted a hospital official as saying on Friday. But a government official denied that the cases in the West Javan village of Cikelet, described by officials as rife with the H5N1 virus, pointed to a possible new cluster case. "Last night a patient was referred by a doctor in Garut with symptoms of suspected avian influenza such as breathlessness and high temperature, so we isolated her and planned to send her to Bandung hospital," said Yogie Prayogi, spokesman at Dr Slamet Hospital. "But she died before we could bring her". He said that blood samples had been sent for testing. A 9-year-old girl from Cikelet, which is in the Garut region, died of bird flu this week according to two local tests, taking Indonesia's confirmed toll from the disease to 45, the highest of any country. A 17-year-old youth from the remote village, actually a number of hamlets, about 90 km (55 miles) south of Bandung, has also tested positive for H5N1, but he has stayed at home after refusing to be hospitalised. Another man also died this month with bird flu-like symptoms but samples could not be taken. Bayu Krisnamurthi, head of the national committee on Avian Influenza Control and Pandemic Preparedness, said authorities were monitoring the 17-year-old at his home and there was no sign of infection among his family members. He said that a 5-year-old girl and a 6-year-old girl suffering from bird flu symptoms had also been taken to hospital after house-to-house checks in the village. But he said that there was no evidence of human-to-human transmission. "All the cases are not clusters because they are from different hamlets," he said by telephone. The official said that up to Thursday about 3,800 birds had been culled in the village area. Indonesia has seen a steady increase in human bird flu deaths this year and the virus is endemic in poultry in nearly all of the provinces of the sprawling archipelago. The country, which has been criticised for not doing enough to stamp out H5N1, has shied away from mass culling of poultry so far citing the expense and the logistical difficulties given the millions of backyard fowl. Fears that the virus had mutated into a form that could pass easily between humans heightened in May when seven people from an extended family died of the disease in North Sumatra. It was the biggest cluster the country has recorded. The virus remains essentially an animal disease but experts fear it could spark a pandemic if it mutates into a form that can pass easily between humans.
