Indonesia woes with H5N1

Jakarta - A senior health official conceded Friday that Indonesia will be unable to bring bird flu under control in the near future, as a US laboratory confirmed the country's 41st death from the H5N1 virus.

Nyoman Kandun, director general of Indonesia's Health Ministry, said a sample sent to the US Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta confirmed that a 3-year-old toddler who died in hospital in Jakarta last week had bird flu.

Vietnam has recorded 42 bird-flu deaths, the most of any nation, but has not had a single case this year. Indonesia, however, has had 30 deaths alone in 2006 and a 75-per-cent death rate overall from the virus.

The Jakarta Post on Friday, citing leading veterinarians, reported that Indonesia will continue to be plagued by bird flu because the government\'s vaccination, early detection, research, eradication and public-awareness campaigns were not being conducted simultaneously.

Indonesia has been criticized for its slow reaction and subsequent attempts to contain the virus after it was first detected in the country's poultry population in 2004.

Incidental culling in one area and vaccination in another would not ensure the virus would be gone' Rangga Tabu, an animal expert from Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta, told a national veterinarian congress on Thursday, the Post reported.

Kandun agreed that as long as Indonesia was unable to stop birds from passing along the virus to humans, infections would continue among both the poultry and human populations.

'The risk factors are there he told Deutsche Presse Agentur dpa. 'As long as you cannot manage the upstream (of the disease) to people, you will be examining the cases all the time.'

International scientists and health officials have warned the H5N1 virus could mutate and cause human-to-human transmission, sparking a pandemic that could kill millions.

© 2006 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur';