Indonesian woman died of bird flu, cluster probed

JAKARTA (Reuters) - A 35-year-old woman who died last week in an Indonesian village described as rife with bird flu was infected with the virus, according to two local tests, and a possible new cluster case is being probed, the health minister said on Sunday. 

The woman from the West Javan village of Cikelet -- which has seen a series of confirmed and suspected cases of bird flu in humans -- died on Aug. 17 after being treated for symptoms of the H5N1 virus. 

"Euis Lina was positive, we suspect there is a possibility of cluster," Health Minister Siti Fadillah Supari told Reuters by telephone. 

Another official said the dead woman's 9-year-old daughter died a week before her mother after showing signs of bird flu, although no specimens were taken for testing. 

"Her 9-year old daughter died a week before her, but we did not take her specimens, so we don't know whether she is positive or negative," I Nyoman Kandun, Indonesia's director general of communicable disease control, said by telephone. 

"It seems she had the same symptoms -- pneumonia, breathlessness. If the daughter was also positive we can say this is cluster family." 

The latest death takes Indonesia's toll from the disease to 46, the highest of any country. 

The official said that there were collecting samples from others who may have been in contact with the family from the hamlet of Pasir Gambir. 

"From the government's view based on our initial tests the virus has only been caught from fowl so far. But we are doing surveillance now," the minister said. 

Fears that the virus had mutated into a form that could pass easily between humans heightened in May when seven people from an extended family died of the disease in Indonesia's North Sumatra. 

Scientists worry that the H5N1 virus that has killed around 140 people and millions of birds since 2003 as it spread from Asia to Europe and Africa could mutate into a strain that could spark a human pandemic. 

The latest death in Indonesia is the second confirmed from bird flu in the area, made up of a number of remote hamlets about 90 km south of the provincial capital of West Java, Bandung. 

A 9-year-old girl from Cikelet, which is in the Garut region, died of bird flu last week according to local tests. 

A 17-year-old youth from the village had also tested positive to the H5N1 virus, but he has stayed at home after refusing to be hospitalised. 

More than 10 people from the area were also being tested for the virus, officials said. 

Indonesia has seen a steady increase in human bird flu deaths this year and the virus is endemic in poultry in nearly all of the provinces of the sprawling archipelago. 

The country, which has been criticised for not doing enough to stamp out H5N1, has shied away from mass culling of poultry so far citing the expense and the logistical difficulties because of the millions of backyard fowl.