A 13-year-old Indonesian girl died of bird flu at the weekend while two of her siblings have tested positive for the H5N1 virus, a health ministry official said on Monday, citing the results of local tests.

“We found three positive bird flu cases in one family coming from Indramayu, West Java,” said Hariadi Wibisono, the ministry’s director of control of animal-borne diseases.

He said this was Indonesia’s fifth cluster of bird flu cases, where people living in close proximity had fallen ill. There was no evidence of human-to-human transmission and dead chickens had been found in the neighborhood, he added.

The H5N1 virus is not known to pass easily between humans at the moment, but experts fear it could develop that ability and set off a global pandemic that might kill millions of people.

If confirmed by outside laboratories recognized by the World Health Organization (WHO), the latest cases would take total known deaths in Indonesia from avian flu to 13 and the number who have had bird flu to 20.

Wibisono said the girl died in an Indramayu hospital while her 15-year-old sister and 3-year-old brother had been sent to a hospital in Jakarta designated to care for bird flu patients.

Indramayu is 175 km (110 miles) east of Jakarta.

“A lot of fowls died around the neighborhood where they lived. But we don’t know yet whether these fowls were carrying the virus. We sent a team there to investigate this morning,” he said, adding that anyone who has had close contact with the children will be tested.

A WHO spokeswoman in Jakarta said she was not aware if a team from the world body would go to Indramayu, but added WHO officials usually joined such investigations with the Health Ministry.

BACKYARD BRIGADE

The highly pathogenic strain of bird flu is endemic in poultry in parts of Asia, and has affected birds in two-thirds of the provinces in Indonesia, an archipelago of about 17,000 islands and 220 million people.

The country has millions of chickens and ducks, many in the yards of rural or urban homes, raising the risk of more humans becoming infected with a virus that is confirmed to have killed 79 people in six countries since late 2003.

This includes recent cases in Turkey, the first human infections outside East Asia.

Experts say the H5N1 virus could become more active in the colder months in affected regions.

And there are fears there could be more cases in China, Vietnam and elsewhere in East Asia later this month during the Lunar New Year when chicken will be an integral part of family reunion celebrations.

Trying to build awareness among Indonesian owners of backyard chickens, Red Cross volunteers wearing protective suits went to a village on the outskirts of Jakarta on Monday and showed residents how to keep poultry cages properly cleaned.

Sanudin 42, who has 20 chickens in his backyard, said he supported the move.

“This morning there was training on how to clean the cages every day. If we do this properly, it’s good,” he said.