Published on November 28, 2005 at 4:02 PM
The Indonesian Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari has announced that the Ministry of Health has been given special rights from drug company Roche, maker of the bird flu drug Tamiflu, to produce the drug.
The minister says it has not as yet been decided which state pharmaceutical company will produce the medicine or how much of it will be made.
It will apparently take three to five months to prepare for production, and amounts produced will depend on the need.
According to the World Health Organization seven of the 12 Indonesians infected with bird flu since July have died.
In China bird flu has reportedly been found in 23 of the country's provinces.
To date bird flu has claimed the lives of almost 70 of the 120 people infected in Southeast Asia since 2003.