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Denpasar. Two young siblings from a family in Bali’s Bangli district are Indonesia’s latest fatalities claimed by the H5N1 virus that causes bird flu, a hospital official said on Monday.

“The samples of throat swab and blood that we have sent to the Health Ministry’s research and development department has been positively confirmed to contain H5N1,” said Elzarita Arbain, the director for general and operational affairs at the Sanglah General Hospital in Denpasar.

Elzarita referred to Wayan Aldiawan,10, and Nengah Rika Ani, 5. The children, both from Tembuku village, died at the hospital on Sunday, two days after they were admitted there.

Rika died at about 8 p.m. on Sunday, while her brother followed four hours later.

Indonesia’s last official avian influenza fatality was a woman from Tangerang, who died in July 2010.

“The bodies of the two cannot yet be taken home because there is still an ongoing ritual ceremony at their village. The bodies have been temporarily put in the morgue,” Elzarita said.

I Gusti Ken Wirasandi, head of the hospital’s H5N1 flu mitigation team, said when the siblings were admitted to Sanglah, they were barely conscious and had to be assisted with breathing equipment.

Ken added that the deaths were immediately reported to the Bali health authorities.

Bali Health Office chief Nyoman Sutedja said the last bird flu fatalities on the island occurred in 2007, when two patients from a total of 46 infected people succumbed to the virus.

He said Bali still had a stock of some 3,000 Tamiflu tablets, the standard medicine for bird flu infection. About 2,000 of the tablets are at Sanglah General Hospital, he added.

“This medicine is only effective within the first 24 hours after someone is suspected to have been infected by bird flu. Therefore, once there are indications of bird flu symptoms, people should report it quickly,” Sutedja said.

He said that in the case of the two children in Bangli, the family failed to report their bird flu symptoms to local health authorities promptly and instead had tried to hide the illness.

“That made the condition worse,” he said.

Putu Sumantra, the head of the Bali Animal Husbandry Office, said the source of the H5N1 infection was unknown.

“The two patients did have a history of contact with dead poultry, but when we went to the location, we only found one live chicken remaining that belonged to the victims. After a rapid test, the results were negative for H5N1,” he said.

He said a team would continue to look for the source of the virus in the area.

“We have also called on all districts and municipalities to enhance their supervision and spraying operations,” he added.

Contact with infected poultry is a common means of contracting the virus.

Bird flu has now claimed at least 142 lives in Indonesia. Over the years, the archipelago has been particularly hard-hit, with the virus cropping up long after most countries managed to stamp out a global outbreak that peaked in 2006.