Three more bird flu suspects in Indonesia

According to a senior health official in Indonesia three children have been hospitalized on suspicion of having the bird flu virus.

The children, two siblings aged ten and six and their 18-month-old neighbour live in the Karo district of North Sumatra, where seven members of an extended family died from the bird flu in May this year.

The children who have reportedly been admitted to the state-run Adam Malika hospital in the provincial capital Medan, were moved from another hospital near their village of Kabanjahe for 'showing the initial symptoms of bird flu'.

The government official Hariyadi Wibisono, Director General of Control of Animal Borne Diseases, says samples have been taken and he believes there are four other people from the same area who are in the process of being moved to Medan for treatment.

According to Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari, officials found the sick children while conducting surveillance in the area and one of them was suffering from pneumonia.

To date Indonesia has reported the highest number of human H5N1 bird flu fatalities globally, along with Vietnam.

Forty-two people have already died there and outbreaks in poultry have been discovered in 27 of the 33 provinces.

Human cases of bird flu have risen steadily in Indonesia since it's first reported outbreak in poultry in late 2003.

Globally the disease has killed at least 134 people since it re-emerged in east Asia in 2003 and millions of birds have killed or culled.

Bird flu is now endemic in Indonesian poultry and the government has been heavily criticised for not doing enough to stamp out H5N1.

The government has so far avoided the mass culling of poultry, citing lack of funds and impracticality.

But even the harshest critics admit the task is formidable, as the mass culling of poultry would be expensive and difficult to carry out in such a vast area where everyone has poultry in their backyard.

Bird flu remains essentially an animal disease and is not easy to catch.

Almost all cases have been contracted through contact with some aspect of sick or dead poultry.

Experts continue to worry that the virus will mutate and develop the ability to pass between humans and trigger a worldwide pandemic.