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A ninth person has died from the bird flu in Indonesia this year.
The Health Ministry said that the bird flu killed a 37-year-old man in central Indonesia on July 30. He had been hospitalized for five days.
The man has been confirmed to live near a chicken slaughterhouse that had been infected with the H5N1 virus. He supposedly came into contact with the sick birds.
The virus has been ravaging poultry all around Asia since 2003. It remains a big problem in Indonesia and experts now fear that it could mutate into a form that would pass easily among people, resulting in a pandemic. Currently though, most human cases are linked to being in contact with sick birds.
The World Health Organization says that 359 people have died from bird flu around the world. Indonesia has the most casualties, with a total of 159 deaths.
