Indonesia confirmed its first human deaths from bird flu Wednesday, a man and his two daughters, bringing Asia´s toll from the disease to 57 people.

Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari told reporters lab tests from Hong Kong showed the 38-year-old man and his two children, 9 and 1, had the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu.

She said the tests done in Hong Kong were based on specimens from the father and one of the daughters, but it could be concluded that all three had died of the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu.

"We don´t distinguish between the three," she said.

All three family members lived in a suburb of Jakarta and died earlier this month.

Bird flu has swept through poultry populations in large swaths of Asia since 2003. Tens of millions of chickens have either died or been slaughtered, while bird flu has killed 38 people in Vietnam, 12 in Thailand, four in Cambodia, and - with the latestdeaths - three in Indonesia.