# 2049
For many months newshounds have complained that local media reports of `suspect' human cases of bird flu are often never acknowledged by the Indonesian authorities. Many of these cases simply fall by the wayside, and we never find out what happened.
We've still occasionally gotten word of bird flu related deaths, but no one has much confidence we are hearing about all of them.
So the following announcement, while disturbing, doesn't really come as a shock.
Jun 5, 5:06 AM EDT
Indonesia says it will no longer formally announce bird flu deaths
By ROBIN McDOWELL
Associated Press Writer
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) -- A 15-year-old girl died of bird flu last month, becoming Indonesia's 109th victim, but the government decided to keep the news quiet. It is part of a new policy aimed at improving the image of the nation hardest hit by the disease.
"How does it help us to announce these deaths?" Heath Minister Siti Fadilah Supari said Thursday, after confirming that the girl from southern Jakarta tested positive on May 13 and died one day later. "We want to focus now on positive steps and achievements made by the government in fighting bird flu."
Indonesia's decision could aggravate the World Health Organization, which waits to update its official tally of Indonesia's bird flu deaths until after they are formally announced by the government. The toll on its Web site stood at 108 on Thursday - accounting for nearly half the 241 recorded fatalities worldwide.
The country's health minister has clashed with WHO over bird flu before.
Supari stopped sharing bird flu samples with the global body in January 2007 after learning that some coveted data about the virus was being kept in a private database at a U.S. government laboratory in Los Alamos, New Mexico, and made accessible to only a handful of researchers.
