Jakarta - A second woman died from bird flu on the Indonesian resort island of Bali, bringing the country's death toll from the H5N1 strain of the virus to 84, health officials said Wednesday. The 28-year-old Ayu Srinadi, working as poultry trader from Tabanan district, died on Tuesday afternoon at Bali's Sanglah Hospital after undergoing treatment for 36-hours. She had high fever and acute pneumonia, said Daswir Nurdin, an official at the Health Ministry's bird flu information centre.
"Test results confirm she has been suffering from bird flu," Nurdin told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa. "She had contact with a dead chicken a week before she was admitted to the hospital," he said.
She was the second person to die in Bali from the Avian Influenza virus in two weeks.
The island's first confirmed victim was a 29-year-old woman, who died on August 12. Her five-year-old daughter died on August 3 after suffering flu-like symptoms, but her body was cremated before samples were taken for testing.
Most human cases of H5N1 are linked to contact with infected birds, but experts fear the virus will mutate into a form that spreads easily among humans, potentially sparking a pandemic.
A 58-year-old man who is being treated at Sanglah Hospital has also have flu-like symptoms, chief of the Bali's health agency said. His condition seems to be improving.
The bird flu issue is sensitive in Bali, where the tourism industry is only just recovering from the 2002 and 2005 bombings.
Meanwhile, Indonesia has sent bird flu samples to the World Health Organisation to allay fears over possible virus mutations. The move also comes as part of efforts to lure tourists back to Bali island, health officials said.
Health ministry spokeswoman, Lily Sulistyowati, said samples were sent to the WHO-affiliated Centres for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta on August 16 to prove to the world that the virus has not mutated in any way and that Bali was still safe to visit.
Indonesia recently stopped sharing samples with international scientists researching mutations, saying it wanted assurances that any vaccines developed from its H5N1 virus strain would not be prohibitively expensive.
