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JAKARTA - A pregnant Indonesian woman has died of bird flu, taking the country's death toll from the virus to 76, a health ministry official confirmed Monday.
"The results of the second test have come in and they are positive," said an official from the ministry's bird flu information centre.
The woman was suspected to have died from the virus on Saturday, but Indonesian officials were awaiting the results of a required second set of tests before confirming bird flu as the cause.
"She is now the 76th human bird flu death for Indonesia," said the official, identified as Joko.
The official said 20 other people were undergoing treatment for the virus in hospitals around Indonesia, the nation worst hit by the virus.
The woman, 26, who was four months pregnant with her second child, died at a hospital in Medan in North Sumatra, the official said.
It was not immediately clear whether she had been in close contact with infected poultry, the main cause of human bird flu infections in Indonesia.
She began to show symptoms of infection on May 2 and was treated first at home, then moved to two different hospitals before she died, officials said.
The government had hoped to eradicate bird flu deaths in 2007, but instead 19 people have now perished this year after contracting the virus.
The latest death comes as the World Health Organisation's annual assembly of 193 governments meets Monday and will discuss a row with Indonesia over sharing of bird flu samples.
The international practice of openly sharing virus samples with foreign laboratories is considered vital for research on vaccines against the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu.
Indonesia halted sample sharing last December because of fears that multinational drug companies would use the practice to develop costly vaccines that would be unaffordable for poorer countries.
Indonesia had agreed in March to an immediate resumption, after reaching a deal with the WHO to develop a new mechanism on sample-sharing.
But nearly two months later, samples have not been sent according to officials, partly because Indonesia insists a verbal commitment is not enough.
The WHO says the H5N1 strain has infected at least 282 people and killed around 170 of them, mostly in Southeast Asia, since the end of 2003.
Scientists worry the virus could mutate into a form easily spread among humans, leading to a global pandemic with the potential to kill millions.
The fear stems from the lessons of past influenza pandemics. A flu pandemic in 1918, just after the end of World War I, killed 20 million people worldwide.
- AFP /ls
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