JAKARTA, Aug. 20 (Xinhua) -- Indonesian Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari said the bird flu cases which were found recently in Garut district, West Java province, were not a cluster case.

    "No, it is not. We hope we would find no longer a cluster case in bird flu in Indonesia," Antara news agency on Sunday quoted the minister as saying.

    The minister said that the specimen of a number of bird flu suspected patients was still examined at a national laboratory.

    Meanwhile, Director General for Disease Control and Sanitation in the ministry I. Nyoman Kandun said that the Garut cases could not be categorized as a cluster case because it happened in separate places and was not simultaneous.

    "It happened on different days and are far from each other," Kandun said on Saturday.

    At present, there were nine cases of bird flu in Garut. Two of them, a 17-year old man identified as U and a girl identified as ASA (9) (died) were said to be positive bird flu virus carriers.

    Two other patients, I (5) and S (6), were said tested negative but they were still hospitalized at Hasan Sadikin Hospital in Bandung, West Java provincial capital.

    Four other suspects in Garut, a man initialed M (20), a women initialed EL (35), a girl R (13) and a boy S (4) have died before health officials were able to take the sample of their blood.

    He said that the Ministry of Health had not yet obtained explanations on a woman initialed K (32) who was suspected of suffering from bird flu.

    The director general said that the number of confirmed bird flu cases in humans in Indonesia had up to now reached 61 people, 46 of whom died.

    The most recent bird flu case involved a girl initialed NA (6). She was a resident of Pondok Cipta housing in Bekasi, West Java. Enditem