Death of woman raises Indonesia's bird flu toll to 66

JAKARTA (AP): An Indonesian woman died of bird flu on Monday, a health official said, raising the toll in the country worst hit by the virus to 66.

The 21-year-old victim died after two weeks of hospitalization in the East Java town of Surabaya, said Nyoman Kandun of the Health Ministry, adding that she had a history of contact with infected chickens.

The H5N1 strain of bird flu has prompted the slaughter of millions of birds across Asia since late 2003, and caused the deaths of at least 169 people worldwide, more than a third of them in Indonesia, according to the World Health Organization.

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