5 new cases in Indonesia of H5N1

JAKARTA, Aug 30 (Reuters) - Five people have been admitted to hospital on Indonesia's Sulawesi island with bird flu-like symptoms and local authorities have sought funds from the government to help cull poultry, officials said on Wednesday.

Samples from the patients in Palu, the capital of Central Sulawesi province, have been sent to a government laboratory in Jakarta to be tested for bird flu, said Runizar Ruesin, head of the ministry's bird flu information centre.

No further details about the five people were available.

Indonesia has so far recorded 60 bird flu cases, 46 of them fatal. The country's death toll is the highest in the world.

Zulkarnain Hassan, a coordinator at the agriculture ministry's Avian Influenza Crisis Centre, said that there had been bird flu cases in poultry in West and South Palu district and the provincial capital of Palu city.

An official of the agriculture ministry in Palu said the local government did not have enough money to compensate farmers for culling their birds and had asked Jakarta for more funds.

"(Culling) is something that must be done," he said, adding that some slaughtering had started in the region on Wednesday.

He did not say how many chickens needed to be killed or how much the work would cost.

Bayu Krisnamurthi, head of the national bird flu control commission, said the central government would reimburse funds spent by local governments or compensate farmers.

Separately, the government will on Friday embark on a new campaign to raise awareness about bird flu through television and radio advertisements, leaflets, posters and billboards, said Tri Satya Naipospos, deputy chief of the National Committee for Avian Influenza Control and Pandemic Preparedness.

"So far our campaign has been spotty. We realise that human cases have occurred in regions where people are ignorant about bird flu and they don't have the means to support our efforts," she said, declining to give the cost of the campaign.

Experts said public ignorance, along with official ineptitude and lack of money, are hampering efforts to stamp out the disease in the country of 220 million.

Farmers often oppose the destruction of their fowl because of low compensation.

A full-grown chicken sells for 35,000 rupiah ($3.85) in Jakarta, but the government only offers between 10,000-12,500 for each fowl killed.

Although bird flu remains essentially an animal disease, experts fear it could mutate into a form that can pass easily among humans, killing millions.

New fears that the virus had mutated into a form that can easily pass between humans arose this month after a series of confirmed or suspected cases in West Java's remote Cikelet village, where bird flu is rife in poultry.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) said there has been no evidence that human-to-human transmission had occurred in the area.