A 39-year-old man died in Jakarta today, shortly after having been admitted to hospital with flu-like symptoms.

The cause of his death is not yet known, and samples have been taken for H5N1 testing. The man's death occurred too soon after his admission for doctors to have established whether or not he had been in contact with infected birds.

Meanwhile:

-- Japan Tuesday reported an outbreak of an H5 strain of avian influenza on a farm in Ibaraki prefecture.

The exact strain is awaiting confirmation, but local authorities have taken the preventive step of culling 90,000 chickens.

Ibaraki prefecture has recently suffered a number of H5N2 outbreaks, all of which have led to the widespread culling of birds, but no H5N1 outbreaks have yet been reported in the country.

-- The H5N1 outbreak in Ukraine has spread and is now affecting 12 villages in the autonomous region of Crimea.

Mass bird deaths have been reported in nine other areas in the country, although none of these has yet been confirmed to be H5N1. Areas that have reported mass deaths among poultry and other birds are undergoing testing for H5N1, but it is a slow process, as there are no laboratories in Ukraine with H5N1-detection capabilities.

So far, 19 villages and two cities in Ukraine have been affected by avian-influenza outbreaks amongst birds.

-- The Spanish government has elected to extend its protective anti-avian-influenza measures until May 31, Forbes reported Tuesday.

The measures are all designed to minimize human contact with birds. They include a ban on poultry markets and a number of exclusion zones where the open-air breeding of poultry is forbidden.

-- In a neat counterpoint to the Spanish extension of avian-influenza counter-measures, the German government has elected to relax the measures it enforced in an attempt to prevent avian influenza infecting the country's poultry flocks.

From Friday, German poultry may once again be kept in the open air.

related report
Another Indonesian dies of suspected bird flu
Jakarta, Indonesia (AFP) Dec 14 - A 39-year-old Indonesian man "strongly suspected" of being infected with the deadly bird flu virus has died in hospital, a medical spokesman said here Wednesday.

If confirmed, the man would be the 10th fatality from avian influenza in Indonesia. Five other infections have been confirmed here but the patients have survived.

The latest suspected victim came from South Jakarta and was admitted Monday to the Sulianti Saroso hospital, Indonesia's main bird flu treatment center, but died Tuesday afternoon, hospital spokesman Ilham Patu, told AFP.

He had shown symptoms of carrying the potentially deadly H5N1 bird flu strain, such as high fever and respiratory difficulties and had been moved from a private hospital in South Jakarta.

"He also showed another key symptom of bird flu infection, a rapid lowering of his white blood cell count," Patu said.

He said the patient was "strongly suspected" to have died of bird flu but results of local tests would not be available until Thursday or Friday.

Health authorities here test suspected cases locally before sending positive results to testing facilities overseen by the World Health Organization (WHO) in Hong Kong for verification.

The victim was one of six people being treated as suspected bird flu patients at the hospital.

Health Minister Siti Fadillah Supari on Tuesday announced that the WHO had confirmed the country's ninth fatal avian flu casualty, a 35-year-old man from West Jakarta who had died on November 19.

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.

The bird flu virus has killed more than 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 is to include house-to-house checks and culls.

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