Indonesia bird flu cases confirmed

JAKARTA -- At least five members of an Indonesian family have been infected with bird flu, the World Health Organization confirmed yesterday, after the case triggered widespread fears of human-to-human transmission.

There is no immediate evidence the H5N1 flu virus passed easily among at least seven members of the family in North Sumatra province. But experts said nothing could be ruled out and more testing was crucial.

In a day of fast-moving events, the WHO also said a caterer from Surabaya city in East Java had died of bird flu, while Indonesia's health ministry said local tests had confirmed a 12-year-old boy from Jakarta who died four days ago was infected with H5N1. Both cases are separate from the Sumatra case.

Clusters of human infections are worrying because they indicate that the virus might be mutating into a form that is easily transmissible among humans. That, experts say, could spark a pandemic in which millions might die.

For the moment, the virus is mainly a disease in birds and is hard for humans to catch.

In Djibouti, which has confirmed the first human case in sub-Saharan Africa after a 2-year-old girl tested positive for H5N1, slaughtering of poultry was halted after angry villagers refused to cooperate unless they received immediate compensation.

Officials hoped to restart culling domestic chickens to contain the virus as soon as possible. The impoverished nation in the Horn of Africa has appealed for international help to fight the disease.

The WHO and other health experts are puzzled over the source of infection in the Sumatran family, six of whom have died.

''The possibility that they may have been infected by the same source is still there," said Sari Setiogi, the WHO spokeswoman in Indonesia. More animal samples would be collected for testing.

''Any time we have a cluster, it raises the suspicion that human-to-human transmission may have occurred. We don't rule out either way . . . it is too early to make any conclusion because investigations are still going on," Setiogi said.

Samples taken from six members of the family were sent to a WHO-affiliated laboratory in Hong Kong and five tested positive for H5N1. Results of the sixth were still pending.