Bird flu to cost for Indonesia 50 million dollars

Bird flu to cost for Indonesia 50 million dollars

Peter Roeder, from the world body's Food and Agriculture Organization, said the money should be used to strengthen surveillance, coordination and rapid response systems in the country's agricultural sector.

Indonesia is on course to soon overtake Vietnam in human bird flu cases.

A WHO-approved laboratory in Hong Kong confirmed Tuesday that a teenage boy from Jakarta died last week of the disease, pushing the country's toll to 39, second only to Vietnam, which has 42.

Experts fear the virus will mutate into a form that is highly contagious among humans, potentially sparking a pandemic. So far, most human cases have been traced to contact with infected birds.

Eliminating the virus in birds is the best way to stop human infections, the AP reports.