Indonesia Clocks Up 86th Human Bird Flu Death

From AFP :

A 21-year-old man from the Indonesian capital Jakarta died from bird flu last week, the health ministry said Monday, bringing the toll in the world's worst-affected nation to 86.

"This confirmed case puts the number now at 107 infected, including 86 dead," Ningrum, a doctor from Indonesia's bird flu information centre, told AFP.

The victim, identified only by the initials "AR", died on Friday at a hospital in West Jakarta, said Ningrum.

He had tested positive for the H5N1 virus in two separate tests, the requirement to be reported as a confirmed case in Indonesia.

The man first suffered flu-like symptoms 10 days earlier but was only admitted to hospital three days before he died, Ningrum said.

It was not known whether he had come into contact with infected poultry, the usual method of transmission, she added.

Has the total fatality rate for H5N1 been reduced in recent months. I thought it was up to about 92. Have to check the records.

Official : Bird Flu Has 80% Human Fatality Rate In Indonesia

We've been writing this fact up on this blog for a few months now, but it's still alarming to see it in print.

From the Jakarta Post :

Around 80 percent of the total 111 bird flu (Avian Influenza) patients in Indonesia, between 2005 and June 2007 have died, an official said.

During the period, some 90 people died of bird flu virus in the country, head of the respiratory disease of the Health Ministry's Community and Environmental Disease Eradication Fonny Silvanus said over the weekend.

The majority of the fatalities were recorded in West Java Province with 29 deaths, and the least fatalities were in South Sulawesi with only one bird flu patient died, Silvanus said when launching a public awareness campaign on animal quarantine.

"At the average, bird flu virus has affected mostly Indonesia's western regions, because the regions are quite humid, which is an ideal condition for bird flu virus to breed well," Silvanus said.

The bird flu patients ranged from one year old babies to 67 year-old adults

It should be noted that the 67 year old victim was the anomaly statistic out of all the human bird flu deaths in Indonesia.

The vast majority of all human deaths in Indonesia have been in people under 40 years old. At least 30 of those deaths have been children under 10 years old.