Indonesia confirms first human deaths from bird flu
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-07-21 10:26

Indonesia confirmed its first human deaths from bird flu, saying tests had shown that a man and his two daughters who died this month were suffering from the disease.

"It's confirmed. They died of the conventional bird flu virus which does not transmit from humans to humans," said Health Minister Siti Fadillah Supari.

She said the tests in Hong Kong were based on specimens from the father and one of the daughters, but it could be concluded that all three had died of the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu.

"We don't distinguish between the three," she said Wednesday.

She said it was not known when and where the 38-year-old man, Iwan Siswara Rafei, and his two young daughters -- aged one and nine -- had been infected.

But authorities believed the three had contracted the disease at about the same time.

The family's house in Tangerang district, just southwest of Jakarta, is far from areas where there are bird flu outbreaks, she said.

Rafei and his daughters died within days of each other in hospital in the first half of July after suffering from severe pneumonia.

About 300 people who had contact with Rafei have been under observation -- including his wife, another daughter and the family's housemaid -- and they have shown no signs of sickness, Supari said.

Georg Petersen, a representative of the World Health Organisation in Jakarta, said Indonesia's bird flu deaths were not a "big surprise" because the country has had outbreaks of the disease since 2003.

"They may have had contact with chicken droppings," Petersen said.

He said the government should investigate how the three became infected and conduct surveillance to prevent further human infections.

Agriculture Ministry Anton Apriyanto has ordered a cull of poultry and pigs within a radius of three kilometers (two miles) of any bird flu outbreak.

The ministry has confirmed the bird flu virus in pigs in Banten province, just west of Jakarta.

The H5N1 strain of bird flu has so far been mainly transmitted between animals but it has also killed more than 50 people in Southeast Asia since 2003.

Experts fear it could mutate into a highly infectious strain that can be easily transmitted from animals to humans or from humans to humans, unleashing a pandemic that could kill tens of millions of people.

Supari said there was no reported case of human-to-human infection so far and called on people to remain calm.

Last month the health ministry reported the country's first human case of bird flu in a farm worker but the man is healthy and shows no symptoms.

The agriculture ministry said at least 9.5 million fowl had died since bird flu was first officially confirmed in Indonesia early last year.

The government launched a massive vaccination drive following the outbreak but it has been criticized for carrying out only limited culling.

Bird flu has now killed 58 people -- 39 Vietnamese, 12 Thais, four Cambodians and three Indonesians -- since late 2003.