Posted on 01/25/2004 4:51:46 AM PST by CathyRyan
JAKARTA (Reuters) - Indonesia has confirmed an outbreak of avian influenza among chickens but has no evidence so far that the disease has spread to humans, a senior official of the agriculture ministry says.
"It's been confirmed avian influenza exists, but no human cases so far," animal health director Tri Satya Putri Naipospos told reporters.
Indonesia had previously insisted it was free of the influenza and blamed the deaths of thousands of chickens on parts of East Java and the tourist centre of Bali in the past three months on Newcastle disease, a virus that is harmless to humans and does not affect the safety of poultry meat.
An outbreak of the highly infectious avian flu strain has killed six people in Vietnam and two human cases have been confirmed in Thailand. Millions of chickens have been slaughtered across the Asian region
No evidence of human to human transmission yet.
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