Laboratory tests have confirmed that bird flu was the cause of death of a middle-aged Indonesian male in November 2005. The man was the 14th fatality of bird flu infections in Indonesia, and the ninth bird flu case confirmed by the World Health Organization after the case was sent by local health officials to Hong Kong for verification.

The confirmation brings to 70 the number of people in Asia who have died in the last two years from the H5N1 strain, now considered the deadliest avian influenza virus subtype. Antiviral medications such as amantadine and rimantadine, which are usually given to treat influenza, do not work on the avian flu virus. Drugs are being developed and temporarily used on patients who appear to have succumbed to the avian flu disease. Although they appear to be responding to treatment and are showing improvements, further tests need to be done to ensure the effectivity of these new drugs.

Humans infected with the avian flu have symptoms that include a fever, sore throat or muscle pain, which are similar to symptoms of human influenza. Thus, it is easy to mistakenly diagnose an actual avian flu as human influenza. However, humans infected with avian flu would have worse symptoms  eye infections and respiratory problems that could become life threatening.

Before the bird flu, there was a disease that came from bovines, commonly known as mad cow disease. This disease came about from the practice of feeding cattle with processed foods. Later on, the cows developed an infection in the brain. The infection caused cows brains to produce sponges, which made the animals go wild and die. Humans who ate meat from infected cattle fell sick and died. To rid of the mad cow disease problem, entire livestock were slaughtered, killed and burned. This prevented the outbreak from reaching other farms. Slaughtering infected cattle was done in many countries in the Asian region, including parts of Eastern Europe and Russia.

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