Australia to send bird flu experts to Indonesia

Australia will send a team of advisers and specialists to Indonesia this week to help it cope with an outbreak of bird flu.

Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said AusAID director-general Bruce Davis would head the deployment.

"The team, drawn from a number of commonwealth government departments, is expected to meet with the Indonesian Ministers for Health and Agriculture, relevant Indonesian government officials and senior personnel from the World Health Organisation (WHO) and United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation," he said.

"These experts will work to make an assessment of the avian influenza threat, convey Australia's concern and agree on specific areas of further Australian assistance.

"This assistance is likely to include the further strengthening of laboratory capacity, public awareness campaigns and contingency planning."

Australia has already funded 50,000 doses of the anti-viral medication Tamiflu for Indonesia, which is due to arrive in Jakarta this week.

The Tamiflu will be distributed among 44 Indonesian avian influenza referral hospitals.

Six people are confirmed as having died from the H5N1 strain of bird flu virus in Indonesia this year out of more than 60 confirmed or suspected cases throughout Asia.

The World Health Organisation fears H5N1 will mutate, acquiring genes from the human influenza virus that would make it highly infectious and lethal to millions in a global pandemic.

- AAP