- JAKARTA (Reuters) - A 67-year-old
Indonesian woman died of bird flu after being treated at a hospital for
more than a week, marking the country's 54th death from the virus, an official
at the health ministry said on Monday.
-
- "The virus in her was highly pathogenic, very vicious.
She is the 54th casualty out of 71 cases," said Runizar Ruesin, the
head of the health ministry's bird flu information centre.
-
- The woman from the West Java city of Bandung died on
Sunday night, the official said.
-
- Hadi Yusuf, the doctor who treated her, told Reuters
the disease also affected the woman's kidneys.
-
- Tests last week found she had the H5N1 virus.
-
- Indonesia has become one of the frontlines in the battle
against the disease. No country has suffered from more deaths than this
huge Asian country of 17,000 islands where millions of chickens roam backyards
freely.
-
- Despite the rise in the human death toll, the Indonesian
government has resisted mass culling of birds, citing the expense and impracticality
in a sprawling, populous country where many people are still unperturbed
by the bird flu threat.
-
- Diseases such as malaria, dengue fever and tuberculosis
kill thousands of Indonesians annually.
-
- Copyright © 2005 Reuters
-
- Patricia A. Doyle DVM, PhD
- Bus Admin, Tropical Agricultural Economics
- Univ of West Indies
-
- Please visit my "Emerging Diseases" message
board at:
- http://www.emergingdisease.org/phpbb/index.php
- Also my new website:
- http://drpdoyle.tripod.com/
- Zhan le Devlesa tai sastimasa
- Go with God and in Good Health
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