Indonesia confirms 81st bird flu death

0 Comments | AFP, July, 2007

JAKARTA (AFP) — A six-year-old Indonesian boy died of bird flu at the weekend, taking the death toll in the country worst hit by the virus to 81, a health ministry official said Monday.

Indonesia has seen its toll from the deadly H5N1 virus grow steadily since 2005 when the first confirmed human deaths occurred here.

"A boy who died on July 8 has been confirmed by two tests as being positively infected," Ningrum, from the ministry's National Bird Flu Information Centre, told AFP.

"The toll is now at 102 infected, and 81 dead."

The primary school student was from the industrial town of Cilegon, 72 kilometres (50 miles) west of the capital Jakarta.

The boy, identified only by the initials FZ, died at Jakarta's Sulianti Saroso hospital,...