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JAKARTA: A 3-year-old boy hospitalized in Jakarta has
been confirmed as the
111th human bird-flu case in Indonesia, the nation worst hit by the
virus, a health ministry official said Monday.
“Two tests were both positive
so the boy is now the 111th confirmed bird-flu case,” said Suharda
Ningrum from the ministry’s bird-flu information center.
Eighty-nine of the 111 cases in
Indonesia have been fatal.
Ningrum said that the boy from
Tanggerang, a satellite city just west of the capital, first showed
symptoms usually associated with bird flu on October 22 but was only
admitted to hospital on Saturday.
“The boy is still being treated
there and reports showed that his condition was good,” Ningrum
said, without elaborating.
She said that the boy had been in
contact with chickens, which later died suddenly. Contact with
infected birds is the usual way that humans contract the virus.
Two other children from Tanggerang
have died of bird flu this month.
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.
Indonesia, the world’s fourth
most populous nation, reported its first human case of bird flu in
July 2005.
 --AFP
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