Special report: Global fight against bird flu

    JAKARTA, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- A 35-year old woman, who has been treated in hospital since Nov. 8, is in a critical condition in Indonesia, a director at the Indonesian Health Ministry said here Tuesday.

    "She is still alive and today in a critical condition," Director Nyoman Kandun told Xinhua.

    The woman, who is from Tanggerang in a suburb of Jakarta, was confirmed by the country's laboratory tests of positive of having avian influenza on Monday, according to an official of the anti-bird flu center of the ministry.

    It was not clear whether she had any history of contact with fowls, the official said.

    She is among the 74 people having contracted avian influenza in the country, 56 of which have died.

    Indonesia, which has been affected the hardest in this regard, has become one of the front lines in the fight against the H5N1 virus.

    The fact the country ranks first in terms of the number of victims of the virus has made bird flu top on the agenda of the forthcoming meeting between U.S. President George W. Bush and his Indonesian counterpart Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in Bogor, a town near Jakarta, on Nov. 20, Indonesian presidential spokesman Dino Pati Djalal has said.

    Millions of people can be killed should the highly pathogenic H5N1 mutate into a certain level, which can make it transmittable among humans.

    Asia has been hit the hardest, with 134 of the 150 human deaths from bird flu since 2003 occurring in East Asian countries, according to the data from the World Bank.