WHO tests show Indonesian girl died of bird flu

JAKARTA, May 27 (Reuters) A 10-year-old Indonesian girl who died on Tuesday in the city of Bandung was killed by the H5N1 bird flu virus, a senior health official today said, citing results from a WHO-accredited laboratory in Hong Kong.

''The girl is confirmed by the WHO as well as the local lab,'' I Nyoman Kandun, director-general of communicable disease control, told Reuters.

The girl's 18-year-old brother, who also died on Tuesday, tested positive locally for H5N1 this week, but was not considered a bird flu case by the Hong Kong laboratory.

''It's a borderline case, he tested negative for some procedures.

It may be because of the procedure of specimen collection, handling, maybe the Hong Kong lab had problems. We had the same experience before in another case,'' Kandun said.

This latest confirmation of the cause of the girl's death would bring the death toll in Indonesia from bird flu to 34, and the worldwide total to 125.

Although the brother would not be classified as a case of H5N1, Kandun said the teenager exhibited the same clinical symptoms as his sister.

Dead chickens were found in the village where they lived a few days before they fell ill and the sick poultry may well have been the source of their infection, he said.

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