A Indonesian boy (6) died of bird flu at the weekend to take the country's death toll from the disease to 81, officials said today.
The boy, from the city of Cilegon in Banten province, suffered from high fever and breathing difficulties before he died of multi-organ failure yesterday, said a hospital spokeswoman.
The victim's family and neighbours did not have any chickens in their backyard, she said, and it is not clear how the boy got the infection.
Bird flu is endemic in bird populations in most parts of Indonesia, where millions of backyard chickens live in close proximity with humans.
Contact with sick fowl is the most common way for humans to contract the H5N1 virus. Experts fear that if an easy means of transmission from human to human develops, there might be a pandemic affecting millions.