Tourism hit again as woman dies from bird flu in Bali
Tuesday, 14 August 2007
Print
Email
The death of a young woman from bird flu on the Indonesian island of Bali has raised fears among British holidaymakers, giving visitors another reason to stay away and dealing another blow to the tourism industry.
Bali has suffered two terrorist attacks in recent years, with more than 200 people killed in nightclub bombings in 2002. The tourism industry was starting to recover when two restaurants were blown up in 2005. Twenty people died, including five foreigners.
Now Bali has recorded its first bird-flu death, with a 29-year-old woman dying in hospital in the capital, Denpasar, on Sunday. Doctors are trying to establish whether her two-year-old daughter, who died recently after playing with chickens, also had the virus.
Indonesia has recorded the most bird flu deaths of any country: 82, of 192 worldwide. Of the 319 human cases confirmed by the World Health Organisation, 103 have been there.
In Indonesia, villagers live close to millions of backyard chickens. There had been sick chickens around the dead woman's house recently, according to Joko Suyono, of the Indonesian Health Ministry's bird flu centre; many had died suddenly in recent weeks. "The villagers didn't burn the carcasses," Mr Suyono said. "Instead they buried them or fed them to pigs." Mr Suyono said that two laboratory tests had confirmed that the woman had the H5N1 bird flu virus.
Bali's tourist numbers have started to improve recently. According to government data, the number of visitor arrivals rose by 34 per cent in the first half of 2007, to 781,059 people, from a year ago.
Bali regularly hosts large international conventions. An important UN climate change conference is being held there in December, with about 10,000 people expected to attend.
