One of two hospitals designated to treat bird flu cases in the Indonesian capital has been overwhelmed with patients with symptoms of the disease amid a spike of new cases this year, a doctor said on Monday.Indonesia has seen four fatalities this year after a six-week lull in cases, taking the number of human deaths from bird flu in the country to 61, the highest in the world.
Nine people with bird flu symptoms are being treated at Jakarta's Persahabatan hospital and its isolation rooms can no longer accept any more patients, said Muchtar Ichsan, the head of the hospital's bird flu ward. A 5-year old girl was being treated at the intensive care unit, he said.
"If we get more patients, we will send them to Sulianti Saroso," Ichsan told Reuters, referring the country's main bird flu treatment centre in North Jakarta.
Seven of the patients at Persahabatan came from Bekasi, a town east of Jakarta, said Muhammad Nadirin, a doctor at the bird flu information centre. An 18-year-old man being treated in Persahabatan has been confirmed to have bird flu after his mother died of the disease on Thursday. The man's father, from Serpong in west Java, was also being treated for similar symptoms but two tests found he did not have the deadly virus. More tests will be conducted on the father.
Nyoman Kandun, director general of communicable disease control at the health ministry, said on Saturday the positive test of the son signalled a cluster case but there was no evidence of human-to-human transmission of the virus so far.