Property damage and business interruption

10.1, bird flu

Asia: a 14-year-old Indonesian boy has died of bird flu, taking the country’s human death toll to 58. The boy, from Tangerang in West Jawa, near Jakarta, was hospitalised in the capital a week earlier. The Indonesian Health Ministry said the boy had been in contact with ducks but officials were still investigating the case. Sick poultry is the usual mode of transmission of the H5N1 bird flu virus. Indonesia, which has the world’s highest bird flu death toll, had not reported any new human infections of the virus since November 28. The government has announced plans to ramp up its fight against the virus and hopes to beat it by the end of 2007, but critics say public ignorance, official ineptitude and lack of money are hampering efforts to stamp out the disease. According to the World Health Organization, the virus has killed 157 people since 2003 and has spread from Asia to Europe, the Middle East and Africa.