| ■ Indonesia Reports 1st Bird Flu Death in 6 Weeks | 07.01.15 |
| A 14-year-old boy in Indonesia who died of H5N1 bird flu Wednesday is the first person in the country to be killed by the virus in six weeks, health officials said. The boy died four days after he was admitted to a hospital for flu-like symptoms. Prior to that, the last recorded bird-flu death in Indonesia occurred on Nov. 28 when a 35-year-old woman died at a Jakarta hospital, the Associated Press reported. Since bird flu first appeared in Asian poultry flocks in 2003, 58 people in Indonesia have been killed by the H5N1 virus. That's more than a third of the worldwide bird flu death toll. Over the past three months, there's been a dramatic decrease in the number of bird-flu infections and deaths in Indonesia. It's believed that may be partly due to a national campaign to vaccinate poultry and boost public awareness about bird flu, the AP reported. Yahoo Healthday |