Two more people have tested positive for bird flu in Indonesia and one has died, bringing Indonesia's death toll from the virus to seven, health authorities said Thursday, according to DPA. The death was of a 23-year-old man who lived in the West Java district of Bogor, just south of Jakarta, said I Nyoman Kandun, the health ministry's director general of disease control. The man died September 29, one day after he was admitted to the Sulianti Saroso Hospital in North Jakarta, which has been designated to treat bird-flu patients. The other new infection was of a 21-year-old man whose condition is improving under treatment at a hospital in Bandar Lampung, the capital of the South Sumatran province of Lampung, Kandun said. Health officials said tissue and blood samples from the two patients have been sent to Hong Kong for further tests at a World Health Organization-recognized laboratory. According to health ministry data, last week's death is the seventh from avian flue in the world's fourth most populous nation, but only four of those deaths have been confirmed by the WHO lab. Health authorities said the number of people confirmed or suspected of having been infected or exposed to bird flu in Indonesia has risen to 85. They are dispersed through nine of the country's 33 provinces.
