 An Indonesian poultry worker has tested positive for bird flu, in the country's first human case of the disease that has so far killed 54 people in Southeast Asia, health officials said Thursday. The worker on the island of Sulawesi is showing no symptoms of the disease, but blood tests show he was exposed to the H5N1 strain of the disease and has produced antibodies to it, said Hariadi Wibisono, director for the eradication of diseases transmitted by animals at the health ministry. "This is the first case found," said Dr. Georg Petersen, WHO's representative in Indonesia. The bird virus has swept through poultry populations in large swaths of East and Southeast Asia. Tens of millions of chickens have either died or been slaughtered, while 38 people have died in Vietnam, 12 in Thailand and four from Cambodia since late 2003. |