JAKARTA - An Indonesian toddler who had tested positive for bird flu according to local tests died on Sunday, a senior health ministry official said.
The 18-month boy's blood sample has been sent to a World Health Organisation-affiliated laboratory in Hong Kong for confirmation. Local tests are not considered definitive.
I Nyoman Kandun, director general of disease control at the health ministry, said the boy from North Sumatra was one of a family of five who had tested positive for bird flu according to local tests. Three of them have died in the past week.
Another health ministry official said the family had eaten chicken but had not had any direct contact with sick fowl, the usual mode of transmission of the disease to humans.
The WHO has confirmed 25 fatalities from avian influenza in the world's fourth most populous nation, the second highest number of human deaths after Vietnam.
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.
It is difficult for humans to catch, but experts fear the virus could evolve into a form passed easily from human to human, causing a pandemic that could kill millions.
In Indonesia, the H5N1 virus has been reported in birds in about two-thirds of the country's provinces.
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