Special report: Global fight against bird flu

    JAKARTA, May 26 (Xinhua) -- Two male siblings who recently died in Bandung, capital of Indonesia's west Java province, have been tested positive for bird flu, bringing the total number of cluster bird flu cases in Indonesia to seven, Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari said here on Friday.

    "An RT-PCR (Reverse Transcriptase-Polymerase Chain Reaction) test has shown the two were infected," Antara news agency quoted the minister as saying when explaining the result of the examination on bird flu suspects As (18) and AT (10) who died at the Hasan Sadikin Hospital in Bandung, recently.

    Thus, the number of cluster bird flu cases in humans that have occurred in Indonesia since July 2005 has reached seven cases, she said.

    But the minister said that so far no epidemiological and virological studies had indicated the prevalence of human-to-human bird flu infection, though such a possibility should not be ruled out.

    "The type of virus is still the same as that of the previous case, the type is still the clayde 2 that originated from animals," she added. Enditem