Indonesia announces 66th bird flu victim

"The victim died just a while ago at a hospital in Surabaya," said I Nyoman Kandun from the health ministry here, referring to the country's second-largest city in East Java province. Kandun, director general of the ministry's Eradication of Contagious Diseases section, said the man was already on the list of 86 confirmed human bird flu infection cases in the country since the first sufferer was detected in mid 2005. He could not give further details, including how the victim had caught the disease. Most human infection cases come from contact with sick or infected birds. In an attempt to stop the spread of the virus, the government has banned residents in the capital from keeping poultry in their back yards, a popular practice in the sprawling city.