Indonesia Begins Slaughtering Poultry
INDONESIA - Officials slaughtered more than 1,000 poultry Thursday in an Indonesian village where preliminary tests showed a 15-year-old boy died from bird flu, as the country struggled with a sudden rise in deaths averaging one every 2 1/2 days last month.About 1,300 chickens were killed within a half mile of the boy's house in the Tasikmalaya district of West Java province, said Budi Utama, head of the local animal and fisheries agency.
Indonesian tests on Wednesday found that the boy had contracted the virulent H5N1 bird flu virus, and officials were awaiting confirmation from a World Health Organization-sanctioned laboratory in Hong Kong.
A hospitalized 8-year-old girl from Pamulang, on the outskirts of Jakarta, also tested positive in local tests, Nyoman Kandun, a senior Health Ministry official, said Thursday.
Source: sfgate.com
2 June 2006
1 minute read
