Indonesia confirmed its fourth human death from bird flu today amid growing global alarm that the virus could mutate and become a pandemic.
A senior Indonesian health official said tests had shown bird flu killed a woman who died last week in a Jakarta hospital after she was admitted suffering from pneumonia and flu-like respiratory problems.
The woman (37), who died last Saturday, lived in south Jakarta near a chicken farm, although health officials have not said how she may have caught the virus.
"Our task now as the government is to make sure the public do not panic. . . . Up until now, there is no proof that there is human-to-human transfer," Indonesia's director-general of disease control said.
World Health Organisation chief Lee Jong-wook
But World Health Organization chief Lee Jong-wook said yesterday the virus was moving towards becoming transmissible by humans and that the international community had no time to waste to prevent a pandemic.
The H5N1 strain has killed 64 people in four Asian countries since late 2003 and also spread to Russia and Europe.
Most of the people killed in Asia since 2003 caught the virus from infected birds. Health experts say the greatest worry is that the highly pathogenic strain of the disease known as H5N1 could mutate and become transmissible between people.
Mr Lee said H5N1 "will acquire this capability - it's just an issue of timing." Countries far from heavily hit Southeast Asian states would not be safe because the disease was spreading through migratory wildfowl, he said.
"Human influenza is coming, we know that, and no government, no leaders can afford to be caught off-guard," Mr Lee warned.
Besides Indonesia, bird flu has killed 44 people in Vietnam, 12 people in Thailand and four in Cambodia.
President Bush unveiled a plan at the United Nations on Wednesday under which countries and international agencies would pool resources and expertise to fight bird flu.
UN health authorities have said more cases could be expected in Indonesia, the world's fourth most populous nation.
The Indonesian government has began a vaccination drive for poultry but carried out only limited culling because it does not have enough money to compensate farmers, and more than half of all chickens in Indonesia are kept in backyards.