JAKARTA, May 13 (Xinhua) -- Five Indonesian people from a family related by blood were positively infected by avian influenza virus after tested by the country's laboratory, health ministry official said here Saturday.

    Director General of Disease Control of the ministry, I Nyoman Kandun said that the five from Indonesia's North Sumatra province had had contacts with fowls and pigs.

    He said that their blood samples had been sent to the World Health Organization's (WHO) affiliated laboratory in Hong Kong.

    They have been tested, the result were positive, Kandun told Xinhua.

    The five are 29 year-old woman, two men of 19 years old and 35,whom have died since at the end of last month, and two others men of 25 years old and 35 years old man, whom survive, according to the director.

    They are from one family tree, he said.

    The director said that tree others people from the family were suspected of having the virus, including a 40 year-old woman and a 10 year-old boy, both of them have died, and a 35 year-old man whom survive.

    According to Kandun the WHO has confirmed 26 out of 35 people contacted by the virus, have died.

    The highly pathogenic H5N1 strain is endemic in poultry in parts of Asia, which killed more than 90 people.

    The WHO has said that the virus may mutate in to a certain form that could infect human to human which turn the outbreak into pandemic that could kill millions of people because they would have no immunity. Enditem¡¡