JAKARTA (AP): Six people from an extended family tested negative for bird flu Saturday after being hospitalized with symptoms of the disease in the Indonesian capital, the Health Ministry said.
The patients were transferred from the town of Serang to Jakarta on Friday after suffering from heavy breathing, fever and coughing for three days, said Nyoman Kandun, the ministry's director of communicable diseases.
"Samples from all six have been tested and came back negative," he said, erasing fears of human-to-human transmission of the H5N1 virus.
Indonesia has been hardest hit by bird flu since it began ravaging poultry stocks across Asia in 2003, tallying 93 human deaths, almost half the recorded fatalities worldwide, according to the World Health Organization.
Almost all cases have originated from sick poultry, but experts fear the H5N1 virus will mutate into a strain that can pass more easily from human to human, possibly sparking a pandemic that could kill millions.
Serang, in Banten Province, is 80 kilometers east of Jakarta.
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