GENEVA (AP): Indonesia has recorded another human case of the H5N1 strain of bird flu, raising its world-leading total to 117 cases, according to the World Health Organization.
The agency said Friday night that the Indonesian Health Ministry had reported that a 16-year-old girl from West Java Province has been hospitalized since Jan. 4 with symptoms of the disease. It said the strain had been confirmed as H5N1.
WHO said investigations found that there had been a number of chickens dying in the girl's neighborhood in the two weeks before she came down with symptoms, suggesting the case followed the pattern of infection when humans have been in close contact with infected poultry.
Of the total number of human cases in Indonesia, 94 have been fatal. WHO says that globally 349 people have been infected with H5N1 since the 2003 outbreak of the disease. Of those, 216 have died.
After Indonesia the country with next highest number of cases is Vietnam with 101, followed by Egypt with 43, according to the U.N. health agency.
The disease is primarily a threat to birds, but world health authorities are tracking the H5N1 strain out of concern that it could mutate into a form more easily transmissible among humans, sparking a pandemic. (***)
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