An Indonesian man has died from the avian influenza virus, bringing the total number of human deaths from the deadly H5N1 strain of the virus in the country to 65, a health official said on Friday. The 32-year-old male died in Persahabatan hospital in Indonesia's capital Jakarta on Thursday after undergoing a four-day treatment, dpa quoted the director-general for infectious diseases at the Indonesian Health Ministry I Nyoman Kandun as saying. "We haven't got any confirmation yet on how he contracted the deadly virus," I Nyoman Kandun told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa. "It's still under investigation," he said. It was Indonesia's 65th death from 85 cases of the H5N1 avian influenza virus and was the seventh death in 2007. Indonesia has the world's highest fatality tally from the disease. Vietnam has had 42 human deaths from the virus, but none in more than a year. In an attempt to stop the spread of the bird-flu virus and alarmed by a sudden spike in bird-flu deaths early this year, the Indonesian government has declared a ban on backyard poultry farms in residential areas of nine provinces. The ban, which started in mid-January for the capital Jakarta and West Java and Banten provinces, was later extended across Java and beyond, according to government officials. The government also placed tight restrictions on the movement and sale of poultry and poultry products across the nine provinces and is preparing more hospitals to treat human cases of the H5N1 virus. Most bird-flu victims globally had direct or indirect contact with sick birds, but scientists fear the virus could mutate into a form easily transmissible among humans, sparking a global pandemic that could kill millions.
