Indonesia plans to re-test worker for bird flu
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Indonesia is trying to find a poultry worker in the east of the country to test him for bird flu for the second time after the first test was inconclusive, a health ministry official said on Wednesday.
Authorities are testing specimens from workers at poultry farms as part of a monitoring programme put in place after the potentially deadly disease emerged in Indonesia in late 2003.
“Out of 63 specimens, one was unclear and we are trying to find that person to do another test,” Umar Fahmi, the health ministry’s director general of communicable disease eradication, told reporters.
Fahmi said the poultry worker who required re-testing was in South Sulawesi province in eastern Indonesia, where outbreaks have been reported in poultry since the start of the year.
So far there have been no reports of people in Indonesia being infected by the bird flu virus, which has killed 36 Vietnamese, 12 Thais and four Cambodians since the disease swept across much of the Asia region starting in late 2003.
The World Health Organisation fears the virus could mutate into a form that can pass easily among humans and trigger a global pandemic that could kill millions.
The Indonesian health ministry has increased surveillance in affected parts of Java and eastern Indonesia to try and identify possible cases of human infection.
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