DENPASAR ~ The Health Ministry said this week that a 43-year-old woman who died in Bali with symptoms of bird flu was not infected with the virus.

“She tested negative,” said an official at the ministry’s bird flu information centre.

The woman, who died on Saturday, had been suffering from a serious lung infection, one of the main symptoms of avian influenza.

The H5N1 virus has killed 84 Indonesians, the highest toll in the world, and is endemic in birds across nearly all of the world’s fourth-largest nation.

Two people were confirmed as dying of the virus in Bali this month, the first human deaths reported on the island, though infected poultry were found there more than a year ago.

Officials have culled more than 6,000 fowl and banned the trade and transport of live poultry in response to the latest deaths.

Scientists worry that the virus will eventually mutate into a form that is much more easily transmissible between humans, triggering a disastrous global pandemic.