Fresh fears over spread of bird flu

A MAN and his two daughters have died of suspected bird flu in Indonesia, and initial investigations showed they had no contact with poultry, raising concerns of possible human-to-human transmission.

If confirmed, the 38-year-old man and the girls, aged nine and one, would be the country's first human fatalities linked to the virus.

They lived in a suburb of Jakarta and all died in the last ten days, the health minister, Siti Fadilah Supari, said.

"These are suspected bird flu cases," she told a news conference attended by officials from the World Health Organisation (WHO). "We have sent specimens to Hong Kong to confirm the results, which will take seven to ten days."

All were suspected of having caught the deadly H5N1 strain of the virus, Ms Supari said.

Hundreds of millions of birds have died or been culled across Asia in the past two years because of the bird flu virus, which jumped to humans in Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia, killing a total of 51 people.

The WHO has long warned that the virus could mutate to allow easy transmission from person to person, causing it to spread rapidly around the world.

Dr Georg Petersen, a WHO representative, said that, while the three Indonesian family members had had no known contact with poultry, it was possible that a more thorough investigation could turn up evidence to the contrary.

"In other countries, this is often the case," he said.

Ms Supari said the man's wife, his son and their two maids had shown no symptoms of the disease - which include fever and respiratory problems - and tests had been carried out on more than 300 people who had been in contact with the family.

On Thursday, the authorities in Indonesia denied that the deaths were linked to bird flu.

Ms Supari said this was because the initial tests came out negative, and not because the authorities wanted to cover up an outbreak.

"We tested, tested and tested again, as is customary in this situation," she said.

Indonesia reported its first human case of bird flu in a poultry worker last month, but the man did not develop symptoms and is currently healthy.

The Philippines, meanwhile, yesterday said initial findings showed that ducks found to have bird flu in a remote town north of the capital, Manila, might not be carrying the deadly strain of the virus, although an Australian laboratory had yet to release the final results of blood tests on the infected animals.