Four people died of bird flu in the first two months of this year in Indonesia, the country hardest hit by the disease, the head of the national bird flu committee said onTuesday.
"(The) four cases confirmed are in January and February," Bayu Krisnamurthi told AFP, without providing further details.
Officials earlier confirmed that a five-year-old girl from Bekasi district east of Jakarta died on January 2, but it was not clear if she was among the four deaths reported by Krisnamurthi.
Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari did not reply to requests to confirm the deaths and the health ministry’s official bird flu death toll stood unchanged at 115 on Tuesday.
The health ministry stopped announcing bird flu deaths on a case by case basis in 2008 and only tells the public of confirmed cases weeks or months after a victim has died.
The H5N1 virus typically spreads from birds to humans through direct contact, but experts fear it could mutate into a form easily transmissible between humans, with the potential to kill millions in a pandemic.
