Tuesday, August 8 2006 12:41 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Jakarta: Indonesia's human bird-flu death toll rose to 43, the highest in the world, after a 16-year-old boy who had tested positive for the H5N1 virus died in hospital, health officials said today (Aug 8,2006). Ilham Patu, spokesman for Jakarta's Sulianti Saroso Infectious Disease Hospital, said the boy died Monday night after being treated for two days. Indonesia now has one more bird-flu death than Vietnam; however, Indonesia has had 32 deaths this year alone while Vietnam has had none. "Indonesia now tops in the world," said Patu. Prior to the boy's death, health ministry officials said they would test a second sample to confirm his bird-flu diagnosis, but no previous secondary test in Indonesia has ever contradicted the original one. The boy, who was not identified, was admitted to hospital early Saturday with flu-like symptoms. He had come into contact with sick chickens at his home in West Java province on the eastern outskirts of Jakarta, said a health official. The Indonesian government has come under fire for its slow response to bird flu, including its reluctance to cull chickens, after the disease was first discovered in the archipelago country in 2004. Bird flu is endemic in 27 of Indonesia's 33 provinces with millions of chickens and ducks infected. Bird flu haS also spread to the remote eastern province of Papua with around 174 chickens dead and 414 others culled due to suspected infections, The Jakarta Post reported Tuesday. International health experts said they fear that H5N1, the strain of the virus that has been deadly in humans, could mutate into a virus that can spread from human to human and spark a pandemic that could kill tens of millions of people. Bird flu in Indonesia grabbed the world's attention in May when seven members of a single family died of the virus the largest recorded cluster to date. The WHO concluded that limited human-to-human transmission likely occurred, but the virus did not spread beyond the blood family members.