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JAKARTA : Indonesia, which has already registered 16 bird flu deaths, is awaiting test results from the World Health Organisation (WHO) on 11 more suspected infections.
"The latest report we have shows that there has been a total of 23 cases of confirmed infection, 16 of them fatal, while we are still awaiting the result of WHO tests on 11 other probable cases, four of them fatal," said an official at the health ministry's bird flu information centre.
The official, who identified himself as Nurdin, said local tests on the 11 probable cases had tested positive but that only tests conducted by the WHO laboratory in Hong Kong would officially confirm infection cases.
"But from experience, the WHO tests have only confirmed the results of our tests," Nurdin said.
The latest WHO test results obtained at the weekend showed that a 22-year-old chicken vendor who died last month and a 15-year-old teenager who died on Wednesday were Indonesia's latest deaths from the H5N1 virus, health ministry official Hariyadi Wibisono has said.
Two more cases had also been confirmed by the Hong Kong-based laboratory, but the patients remained alive bringing the total of confirmed bird flu cases in Indonesia to 23, of which 16 have died," Wibisono told AFP.
Nurdin could not give details of the two new surviving bird flu cases.
A health official on the weekend said the two were a five-year-old boy from Lampung province on Sumatra island and a 15-year-old boy from the West Java town of Padalarang.
The virus has now killed some 87 people in Asia since 2003.
Indonesia, the world's fourth most populous nation, was initially accused of covering up the virus, which is transmitted by close contact with infected poultry.
Many Indonesians live with chickens around their homes, even in urban areas, creating ideal conditions for infections to pass from the birds to humans.
A WHO team warned last month that Indonesia needed to focus more on measures aimed at preventing such virus transmission and also on preparations for a possible human pandemic.
Experts fear that H5N1 could mutate into a form easily transmissible by humans, sparking a global pandemic that would have the potential to kill millions. - AFP/de
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