Thu, 06:19 31 Jan 2008 GMT17

 

Indonesian teenage girl tests positive for bird flu
11 Jan 2008 05:40:12 GMT
Source: Reuters

JAKARTA, Jan 11 (Reuters) - A 16-year-old Indonesian girl from West Java has tested positive for bird flu, taking the country's total confirmed human cases to 117, a health ministry official said on Friday.

Joko Suyono, an official at the health ministry's bird flu centre, said the girl fell sick at the end of last month and was being treated at a hospital in Jakarta.

"A few days before falling sick, she ate three soft-boiled eggs. Some chickens also died in her neighbourhood two months ago but it is unclear whether she touched the carcasses or not," Suyono told Reuters.

A hospital official said the teengaer was in intensive care with a respiratory device.

On Christmas Day, a 24-year-old woman from Jakarta who bought a live chicken from a market died from bird flu, bringing the country's death toll to 94, the highest in the world.

Contact with sick fowl is the most common way of contracting bird flu, endemic in bird population in parts of Indonesia.

Although bird flu remains an animal disease, experts fear the virus could mutate into a form easily passed from human-to-human and kill millions. (Reporting by Mita Valina Liem; Editing by Sugita Katyal and Alex Richardson)
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U.N. influenza coordinator David Nabarro speaks during an interview in Jakarta January 30, 2008. The recent outbreak of bird flu among poultry population in India's West Bengal "is coming under control", ...



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