Indonesia's health ministry said Tuesday that a man who died in September had succumbed to bird flu, bringing total bird flu deaths in the country to four.

Three other Indonesians had fallen sick with the virus and survived, said a senior official.

The news as United Nations officials are urging the island nation to step up containment efforts.

With global concern over a possible bird flu running high, health experts say Indonesia, with its slums chock full of birds and people, may be one of the weakest links in preventing a pandemic.

At least three Indonesians have died since the first human cases of bird flu were recorded there last month.

But despite rumblings of a bird flu emergency, fuelled by reports the virus has already spread across two-thirds of the country, the Indonesian government has yet to order any quarantines or bird culls.

As one farmer told CTV News, until officials issue an explicit directive, he plans to keep all his fowl.

But the country's apparently lackadaisical response is no surprise to former Indonesian Director of Animal Health Trisatya Putri Naipospos.

"There is no support from the whole administration of the whole country," she told CTV, recalling her experience as the woman in charge of ridding Indonesia of the virus.

As Naipospos discovered last month, the country's response runs deeper than apathy -- she was fired after publicly accusing the government of ignoring the issue.

But international health experts fear that, even if there is a sudden and drastic shift in the government's response, it may be too late to eradicate.

"It's important that countries that have poultry outbreaks eliminate those outbreaks so that human infection is minimized," Jakarta-based World Health Organization field epidemiologist Gina Samaan told CTV, conveying concern that the opportunity to stem an outbreak may have already passed Indonesia by.

Indonesian Agriculture Minister Anton Apriyantono admits his government has done little, but places the blame squarely on citizens.

"Many people are still uneducated," Apriyantono told CTV.

"I would like to do mass culling, but they say 'No, no, no'."

The task force

With so many Indonesians living in poverty, it's not hard to understand why they may be reluctant to eradicate a desperately needed source of food.

Recognizing that dilemma, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization announced Monday it is sending a task force to define affected areas and plot a strategy in Indonesia.

"We are very much concerned about the presence of the virus in the small flocks of millions of backyard poultry farmers," FAO's chief veterinary officer Joseph Domenech said, noting his agency's project will initially focus on the main island of Jakarta and its population of more than 120 million people.

"There still seems to be a lack of awareness in the rural and suburban communities about the threat the virus poses to humans and animals."

Obviously, convincing the country that fighting a threat it cannot see should trump all other concerns has so far proven nearly impossible.

Attitudes may soon change, however, as the coming rainy season brings with it an expected increase in the number of avian flu infections in humans.

Most avian flu viruses pose no threat to human health. But the H5N1 variant now worrying officials around the world has proven deadly to many of those it's infected.

Since late 2003, of the 118 confirmed human cases of H5N1 infection, 61 have proven fatal. All those cases occurred in Southeast Asia, where outbreaks in poultry have been widespread.

Migratory birds are being credited with the recent spread of the virus across Asia and into Europe.

Prepared with a report from CTV's Steve Chao in Jakarta