Indonesia confirms fourth bird flu human death as China reports outbreak

Indonesian authorities on Tuesday confirmed the country's fourth human death from bird flu, while China reported an outbreak of the virus among geese in its eastern Anhui province its second outbreak in a week.

The latest Indonesian victim, a 23-year-old man from Bogor, West Java, was hospitalized in late September and died two days later, said Hariadi Wibisono, a Ministry of Health official. A Hong Kong lab confirmed the test results on Monday, he and a World Health Organization official said.

The H5N1 strain of bird flu has swept through poultry populations in many parts of Asia since 2003, jumping to humans and killing more than 60 people. Most human cases have been linked to contact with sick birds.

Bird flu sickened 2,100 geese in eastern China and killed about a quarter of them, a U.N. official said Tuesday.

The Agriculture Ministry confirmed Monday that the birds died of the H5N1 virus near Tianchang, a city in Anhui province, said Noureddin Mona, the China representative for the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization.

A report to the World Organization for Animal Health said the outbreak was detected Oct. 20. It said 140,000 birds had been vaccinated and that quarantines and other precautions were taken.

According to Mona, about 45,000 birds have been culled within a four-kilometer (three-mile) radius of the site.

Days earlier, another new outbreak of the disease was found in the northern Chinese region of Inner Mongolia. Some 2,600 chickens and ducks were found dead at a breeding facility, sparking fears that humans were at risk of being sickened.

China has not reported any human infections, reports the AP.

P.T.