A laboratory in Hong Kong has confirmed the H5N1 strain of bird flu killed two children from the same family this month, a senior official at the Health Ministry said today.
Indonesia has now had 14 confirmed deaths from bird flu, said the official, Hariadi Wibisono, director of control of animal-borne diseases at the ministry, and five cases where patients have survived.
The two children were a 4-year-old boy and a 13-year-old girl from the town of Indramayu in West Java province. Their father has also been admitted to hospital suffering suspected bird flu, although no test results have come back for him yet.
Officials had previously said the boy was aged 3.
The Indramayu family is Indonesia's fifth cluster of cases, where people living in close proximity have fallen ill.
There has been no evidence of human-to-human transmission in the deaths of the children and officials have said dead chickens were found in their neighborhood at Indramayu, which lies 110 miles east of Jakarta.