The Indonesian Health Ministry confirms that a 14-year-old boy has tested positive for bird flu in Indonesia, the country’s first case of the virus in almost two months. The boy, from Tangerang in West Java, was hospitalised in Jakarta after he suffered from bird-flu-like symptoms on Jan_1.
The boy had been in contact with ducks but officials were still investigating the case. Sick poultry is the usual mode of transmission of the H5N1 bird flu virus. The government has announced plans to ramp up its fight against the virus and hopes to beat it by the end of 2007, but critics say public ignorance, official ineptitude and lack of money are hampering efforts to stamp out the disease that has killed 57 people in Indonesia.