Bird flu has been detected throughout the Indonesian capital, while hard-hit Vietnam reported another outbreak as farmers there struggle to sell poultry, officials said Friday.

“It is very serious,” said Indonesian Agriculture Minister Anton Apriyantono. “Based on our research, the virus has spread all over the city” of Jakarta.

The findings were announced after random samples were gathered from backyard farms throughout the sprawling capital. Authorities on Friday also destroyed 400 fowl in a residential area of Jakarta near the home of a young girl who died from the disease.

Indonesia has been reluctant to carry out such mass slaughters, citing a lack of money. Affected farmers on Friday were offered some compensation, however, officials said.

The H5N1 virus has been found in 23 of Indonesia's 30 provinces and has killed seven people.

In Vietnam, the country hardest-hit by the virus, officials on Friday reported a new outbreak in southern Long An province, the Department of Animal Health said on its website.

Outbreaks have been reported in 19 other provinces throughout the Communist country since October, killing or forcing the slaughter of more than one million birds, it said.

Meanwhile, authorities were trying to coax a man suspected of having bird flu to return to the hospital after he left an isolation ward, the state-controlled Youth newspaper reported.

The patient was admitted Thursday to the General Hospital in southern Tien Giang province with a high fever and difficulty breathing, it said. He left a quarantined area to buy personal items and never returned, it said.

He was later located by authorities in his home province of Ben Tre, it said.

The man told doctors he slaughtered his sick chickens a week before falling ill, the newspaper said.

Vietnamese Health Minister Tran Thi Trung Chien told the lawmaking National Assembly in a televised testimony that she has asked Prime Minister Phan Van Khai to allocate 4.9 trillion dong ($310-million U.S.) between now and the end of next year to fight bird flu.

“The fight against bird flu is very urgent,” she said.

In Japan, officials announced they will spend 100 million yen ($840,000 U.S.) to develop a bird flu vaccine prototype to help create a human vaccine if the virus mutates into a form that passes easily between people, said Tomohiko Arai, head of a government advisory panel on science.

The Japanese plan calls for faster development and approval of flu vaccines, Mr. Arai said. Currently, vaccine production requires several months of development plus safety screening before clinical use.

At least 67 people have died from bird flu in Asia since 2003, the bulk of them in Vietnam. Health experts fear the virus could mutate into a contagious form that spreads easily from person to person. So far, most human cases have been traced to contact with birds.

In addition, Trinidad and Tobago halted a shipment of feathers from China on Thursday amid fears the bird flu virus could enter the Caribbean islands. The single container was being held at the port until another vessel could return it to China, officials said.

“It is unlikely that these feathers are contaminated, but we would not like even a slight chance of an outbreak here,” Health Minister John Rahael said.

The two-island country's annual carnival in February is one of the most colourful in the Caribbean, with dancers in feather-clad outfits and headpieces.

Most feathers for the handmade costumes traditionally come from abroad, but carnival organizers said they now plan to explore using more local feathers.

© Copyright 2005 Bell Globemedia Publishing Inc.

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