A 33-year-old Indonesian man from Riau province in Sumatra Island died of bird flu on Thursday, the Health Ministry said here.
The death has put the total bird flu fatality in the country to 85 out of 106 cases.
"He died at mid day," Joko Suyono, an official of the anti-bird flu center of the ministry, told Xinhua.
The man, who had been treated in the bird flu-designed hospital Arifin Ahmad in the capital of the province Pekanbaru since Sept. 2, had been in critical condition since Thursday morning, said the official.
Suyono said that the man had contacted chickens before he got the germs of the disease on Aug. 25.
"He processed chicken that he bought from nearby market," said the official.
In December last year, the area, where the man lived, recorded sudden deaths of a number of chickens by bird flu, said the official.
Contact with chicken is the most common cause of bird flu death in Indonesia.
Three days after having the germs, the man was admitted into Santa Maria hospital of Pekan Baru, the capital of the province, on Aug. 28 before he was admitted to the bird-flu designed hospital in the capital.
Experts fear that the highly pathogenic H5N1 virus could mutate in a certain level that can make them transmittable among humans, which can cause a pandemic where million people would be killed.
As the number of victims of the virus keeps slowly rising in the country, the health authorities have decided to use the country's own anti-bird flu vaccine after September to stop the virus spread on human, despite the World Health Organization suggestion to stock pile the vaccines.
Huge territory, traditional way of raising chickens in back yard and lack of determination of provincial administration in implementing the Jakarta decision to stop the virus spread are among the obstacles in fighting the bird flu in the country, experts said.
Source: Xinhua
|
Comment
Tell A Friend
Print Format
Save Article