Indonesia, the world's fourth most populous nation, has now confirmed 14 infections in total, with more than a dozen further suspected deaths caused by the H5N1 virus, which an overstretched health system is struggling to monitor.

"The WHO has confirmed the results. We have now nine confirmed bird flu deaths," Siti Fadillah Supari told AFP.

She said the latest casualty, confirmed by tests at the WHO testing laboratory in Hong Kong, was a man who died at the private Pantai Indah Kapuk hospital in North Jakarta on November 19.

The latest victim was identified only by his initials, AW, and came from a residential area in West Jakarta, where many of those infected so far have hailed from.

He had been scheduled to transfer to the Sulianti Saroso Hospital in North Jakarta, the main center in Indonesia for bird flu treatment, but his critical condition had prevented it, local press reports said.

Meanwhile, Sulianti Saroso Hospital hospital spokesman Ilham Patu told AFP that five new suspected bird flu patients were admitted overnight Monday and Tuesday from several areas of Jakarta.

"We have now a total of six patients being treated for suspected bird flu infections," Patu said.

He said some of the five admitted were in a worse condition than the sixth patient, a 23-year-old woman who has been under treatment in an intensive care unit at the hospital for the past few days.

Health authorities here test suspected cases locally before sending positive results to Hong Kong for verification.

Indonesia's health system, already overstretched by last year's deadly tsunami and a reemergence of polio, has been under strain preparing for a potential major outbreak of avian influenza.

Animal health experts are also struggling to keep track of numerous clusters of bird infections and deaths, but they confirmed Tuesday another outbreak in the town of Dumai, Riau province on the island of Sumatra, the state news agency Antara reported.

Some 1,800 chickens and ducks were to be culled in a one-kilometre (0.6 mile) radius around where the infected chickens were found. The UN's food and agricultural office recommends however culling within a three-kilometre radius.

The bird flu virus has now killed at least 70 people in Asia since 2003.

Scientists warn that continued contact between infected birds and humans may eventually result in the virus mutating into a form that could be easily passed on by humans, sparking a pandemic that could kill millions.

Indonesia -- which was accused of covering up initial outbreaks of bird flu -- has pledged a year-long fight against the virus, which will include house-to-house checks and culls.

Supari reportedly said over the weekend that the government wanted to vaccinate 47 million people who are directly involved with poultry and birds across the nation's more than 17,500 islands against normal human influenza.

Such vaccinations would reduce the opportunity for H5N1 to mutate with the ordinary human flu virus and become easily transmissible, as scientists fear may occur.

But the minister said state coffers could not afford the estimated five trillion rupiah (nearly 500 million dollars) such a move would cost.

Source: Agence France-Presse

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