Fifth from Indonesian family dies from bird flu

According to local health officials a fifth member of an Indonesian family has died of bird flu.

The diagnosis was confirmed following tests carried out locally says a senior medical official.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has sent a team to North Sumatra to investigate the case.

Nyoman Kandun, head of the Health Ministry's office of communicable disease control says the other four family members died from the disease early last week.

In total eight members of the family are suspected of having contracted the virulent H5N1 bird flu virus.

To date Indonesia's official human death toll from the virus has now reached 25, making it second only to Vietnam, which recorded around 48 deaths.

International health experts said earlier this year that outbreaks of H5N1 infections in people and poultry in Vietnam had been eradicated.

In cases of multiple related deaths such as those in Indonesia, health officials are particularly concerned as it could signal that the deadly virus has mutated to a form transferable between humans.

The virus remains essentially a disease of birds and is transmitted by contact with diseased birds.

According to Kandun samples from the patients had been sent to a WHO-accredited lab in Hong Kong for confirmation that they did die of bird flu.

Kandun has revealed that a sixth family member died previously, but samples from the body had not been taken for laboratory investigation as the person had been buried.

Kandun says they are continuing to investigate the case and are trying to trace the source of the virus.

Investigators are apparently checking poultry near the family's village, as no evidence of bird flu among chickens and other animals had been found in their village.

The H5N1 virus has been reported in birds in about two-thirds of the country's provinces but the government has been reluctant to carry out the mass culling of birds, because of the expense and impracticality in a country where keeping a few chickens or ducks in the backyards is common.

International experts have said they hope Vietnam's campaign to vaccinate its poultry against H5N1 will serve as an example for other countries in dealing with the virus, which has killed more than 100 people in all.

Vietnam has not reported any new infections in humans since November and no poultry outbreaks since December.

The virus has spread in birds at an alarming rate in recent months, sweeping through parts of Europe, down into Africa and across into South Asia.