Indonesia's bird flu outbreak may become epidemic

Indonesia said yesterday an outbreak of bird flu in its teeming capital could become an epidemic as health and agricultural experts from around the world converged on Jakarta to help control the virus.

Health Minister Siti Fadillah Supari said the emergence of sporadic human cases of bird flu in recent months in and around different parts of Jakarta, home to 12 million people, might become an epidemic if the number of cases continued to increase.

She was speaking after announcing that an initial local test on a five-year-old girl who died yesterday after suffering from bird flu symptoms was negative for the virus.

"It's not an epidemic yet, but sporadic cases in parts of Jakarta... if (cases) are increasing it is possible that an epidemic may occur," the minister told Reuters when contacted by telephone.

She had earlier told reporters the situation had reached the epidemic stage, but later retracted the comments in phone calls to some news agencies.

Four Indonesians are already confirmed to have died since July from the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain of bird flu, which has killed 64 people in four Asian countries since late 2003 and has been found in birds in Russia and Europe.

Six other patients are still in a government-designated hospital in Jakarta suspected of having avian flu.