The World Health Organisation has announced that the death of a two-year old in Indonesia is linked to bird flu. In another case in the country a nine-year old also contracted the virus, although she survived. Both had the nasty H5N1 strain.

To date 139 cases of bird flu have been confirmed in Indonesia since 2003, with 113 of them being fatal (press release, news coverage).

Meanwhile, Hong Kong’s Health secretary warned of a “new alert” and said the government will consider using a new vaccine on chickens after an outbreak on a poultry farm (AP).

“This virus has mutated slightly over the last six years, although it has not turned into a human-to-human, or more serious type of virus,” says York Chow (AFP). “Because of the mutation of the virus, we have asked the University of Hong Kong and the mainland to conduct research to find out if there is a need to [replace the H5N2 vaccine] by the H5N1 vaccine.”

Time notes:

This week’s outbreak is particularly alarming because some of the chickens killed by the virus appear to have been vaccinated against it, according to the government. Lo Wing-lok, president of the Hong Kong Medical Association and an expert on infectious disease, says that Hong Kong uses an older version of the H5 vaccine than mainland China, where there are more frequent outbreaks and farmers vaccinate poultry specifically against the H5N1 strain of the virus.

…

“When the time arrives that the old vaccine no longer works, I believe we should have another to put in its place,” Dr. Lo says. “Apparently we do not.”

Export of live poultry from Hong Kong has been suspended (Xinhua).

Bird flu is also spreading in India, where over 10,000 birds have been culled over the last 10 days.