WHO recognises three bird flu cases in Indonesia

GENEVA, Sep 8 (Reuters) The World Health Organisation (WHO) today said that it had recognised three more cases of bird flu in Indonesia, one from June and two dating to 2005.

''The retrospectively confirmed cases bring the total in Indonesia to 63. Of these cases, 48 have been fatal,'' the WHO said in a statement. The national toll is the highest worldwide.

Bird flu remains essentially an animal disease, but scientists fear the H5N1 bird flu virus, which has killed 143 people since late 2003, could mutate into a pandemic strain capable of killing millions of people.

One case was that of a 14-year-old Indonesian girl who died in June, whom national authorities yesterday announced on Thursday had been infected with bird flu.

The case, in the South Sulawesi province, had taken a long time to identify because it was from blood samples taken during routine surveillance of people with mild influenza symptoms.

The WHO said she had had contact with poultry near her home.

The WHO also validated two bird flu cases in Indonesia dating to June 2005 and November 2005, thereby aligning itself with official figures of the country's health ministry.

Prior to the recent revision of WHO's case definitions for H5N1 infection, the cases had not met the United Nations health agency's criteria for serologically confirmed avian influenza infection, it said.

The June 2005 case was an eight-year-old girl from Banten province who died the following month and was part of a ''family cluster'' reported at the time, according to the WHO.

Her father, who also died in July 2005, was Indonesia's first laboratory-confirmed H5N1 positive human case. Her one-year-old baby sister also died at the time with similar symptoms but there was no word today about the status of testing on her samples.

The other retrospectively confirmed case is a 45-year-old man from Central Java Province who developed symptoms in November 2005 following direct contact with diseased poultry, according to the WHO. He has recovered.

REUTERS SBA KP2246