The Indonesia government announced Wednesday the country's first human deaths linked to bird flu, after a test confirmed in Hong Kong that three people who died this month were infected with the virus.

"The result of the test in laboratory in Hong Kong that I received this morning, confirmed that they were positively infected with the virus of H5N1," Indonesian Health Minister Fadilah Supari said.

Last week, Indonesian health authority declared that a man and his two daughters were suspected of dying from bird flu in Tanggerang City, near Jakarta. The samples of their blood were then sent to Hong Kong for testing.

Iwan Siswara Rapei, 38, and his two daughters, Sabrina Nurul Aisyah and Thalita Nurul Azizah, were not known to have had any contact with sick birds within the past four months, according to the health ministry.

The father was suspected of contaminating the virus when he traveled to Hong Kong and India.

The ministry has put more than 300 people who have had contact with the three victims under observation, saying that none of them had so far displayed any signs of bird-flu infections, such as fever and respiratory problems.

The government has also taken anticipatory measures to treat and prevent any possible spread of avian influenza. They included providing 44 hospitals across the country with the necessary support facilities to treat bird flu-related diseases as well as SARS.

A special command post was set up at the directorate general of disease control and environmental health agency in Central Jakarta.

The H5N1 strain of the virus is known to have killed 38 Vietnamese, 12 Thais and four Cambodians since 2003.

Since last year, millions of poultry, including 9.5 million chickens, have died in a bird flu outbreak in Indonesia.

Source: Xinhua