The World Health Organization says it hasn't found any conclusive proof that the bird flu virus can be transmitted between humans.

A spokesman for the organization, Peter Cordingley made the remarks just as Indonesia reported its first human case of bird flu.

"We have found a couple of cases that were very suspicious, but we couldn't actually hammer that nail home," said Cordingley.

The H5N1 strain of bird flu has jumped from chickens to humans elsewhere in Southeast Asia, killing 36 people in Vietnam, 12 in Thailand and four in Cambodia.

Indonesian health officials on Wednesday said that a poultry worker in the country may have contracted bird flu.

Doctor Georg Petersen, the WHO's representative in Indonesia, quickly downplayed the finding, saying that numerous positive results found in Indonesia had later been invalidated, and were due to mistakes made in the lab.

A few days ago, a scientist identified the H5N1 strain of bird flu in pigs on the Indonesian island of Java, raising fears that the virus could more easily spread to humans.

Experts worry that pigs infected with both bird flu and its human equivalent could act as a "mixing bowl," resulting in a dangerous, mutant virus that might spread to people more easily - and then from person to person.

(CRI.com May 20, 2005)