Bird flu kills Indonesian woman

Indonesia has struggled to get its bird flu message through to people

A woman has died from bird flu on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, bringing the country's toll from the disease to 87, officials said.

The 44-year-old woman fell ill after buying chickens from a market in Pekanbaru city in central Sumatra.

Blood tests showed that she had the deadly H5N1 strain of the virus, health ministry officials said.

Indonesia is the nation worst affected by bird flu and has struggled to contain the virus.

It has confirmed 108 human cases of the virus, 87 of whom have died. In August, a woman died of the virus in Bali, the resort island's first case of H5N1.

Since the H5N1 virus emerged in South East Asia in late 2003, it has claimed more than 180 lives around the world.

Almost all infected people are thought to have contracted the disease from poultry.

Scientists fear the virus could mutate to a form which could be easily passed from human to human, triggering a pandemic and potentially putting millions of lives at risk.