Bird Flu-Infected Chickens in Indonesia Showing No Symptoms

JAKARTA: Chickens infected by bird flu inIndonesia are now mostly symptom-free, confounding efforts to fight the virus in the world's hardest hit country, an Agriculture Ministry official said Monday.

"It's really giving us a headache," said Musni Suatmodjo, the director of animal health. "Chickens are testing positive for the H5N1 virus, but they are staying healthy" making it difficult to identify which are infected.

Bird flu has killed at least 189 people since it began ravaging Asian poultry stocks in 2003, 79 of them in Indonesia, according to the World Health Organization.

The virus remains difficult for people to catch, but experts fear it could eventually mutate to a form that spreads more easily between humans, sparking a global pandemic that could kill millions.

John Weaver, of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, noted that several researchers have said many infected chickens appear to be surviving in Indonesia, triggering questions about whether thevirus may have become less pathogenic.

"It's a very important question," he said on the sidelines of an international bird flu conference in the capital Jakarta. "But we haven't yet answered it."(***)