to protect human...prevention is important

The H5N1 virus has swept through poultry populations in large swathes of Asia since 2003, resulting in the deaths of tens of millions of birds – and 63 people, including a 37-year-old Indonesian woman who died last week.

So far, most human cases have been traced to direct contact with infected birds, but health experts have warned that the virus could mutate and become easily communicable from human to human, triggering a deadly global pandemic.

Indonesia recorded its first human fatalities from bird flu in July when a father and his two daughters died after contracting the virus. Officials have linked those deaths to droppings from an infected bird.