JAKARTA, Oct 29 (Reuters) - A three-year-old Indonesian boy has tested positive for bird flu but his life in not in danger, a health ministry official said on Monday.
The boy, from Tangerang, west of the capital Jakarta, lives in the same neighbourhood as a five year-old girl who died of bird flu last week, said I Nyoman Kandun, the health ministry"e;s director for communicable disease control. The girl"e;s death was Indonesia"e;s 89th fatality from the H5N1 bird flu virus. The boy is suffering only minor symptoms of flu and is being treated at Sulianti Saroso hospital, Jakarta"e;s main bird flu treatment centre, Kandun said. Chickens are known to have died in the two children"e;s neighbourhood. Contact with sick fowl is the most common way for humans to contract the deadly H5N1 strain of the virus. Bird flu is endemic in bird populations in most parts of Indonesia, where millions of backyard chickens live in close proximity with humans. Indonesia, which has now had 111 confirmed cases of the disease in humans, has suffered more fatalities than any other country. Excluding the latest case, there have been 204 deaths and 332 cases globally since 2003, according to World Health Organisation data.