A 3-year-old Indonesian girl has died from avian influenza in Indonesia, bringing the country's total deaths from the disease to 41.

Nyoman Kandun, an official from the Indonesian Health Ministry, said the victim contracted the disease from a neighbor's infected chickens, Antara News reported Friday. The cause of death was verified by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta.

Indonesia, which was the site of the first confirmed cluster of human-to-human transmission of the disease, has been criticized for not working quickly enough to destroy infected birds and prevent the spread of bird flu, Antara said.

The World Health Organization has said a strain of bird flu that claimed seven lives in Indonesia in May was a "dead end" genetically that could not cause a pandemic.

Copyright 2006 by United Press International