JAKARTA: A 30-year-old Indonesian woman who died during the weekend was infected with bird flu, bringing the death toll in the country worst affected by the virus to 90, a health ministry official said Monday.

"Both tests are positive," Suharda Ningrum, from the ministry's bird flu information centre, told reporters.

Two tests must come back positive for the H5N1 virus before a victim is confirmed as part of the official bird flu death toll in Indonesia.

"Now the number of cases is 112, of which 90 have been fatal," Ningrum added.

The death toll in Indonesia, a sprawling archipelago nation where the H5N1 virus is endemic among birds, is the highest in the world.

The latest victim came from Tangerang, a satellite city just west of the
capital Jakarta where three other bird flu cases were reported in children last
month. Two of the children died.

Another official said earlier that the woman, who had come into contact with sick poultry near her home, had fallen sick on October 23.

She was hospitalised in Tangerang on October 30 and transferred to a Jakarta hospital a day later.

Transmission of the virus to humans is mainly by infected birds but scientists fear that it will eventually mutate into a form that is much more easily transmissible between humans, triggering a global pandemic.

- AFP/yb