The complaint, the first step towards a lawsuit, was made by a brother of the 32-year-old victim, who was treated at a hospital in the Jakarta satellite city of Tangerang and then later at a hospital in the capital, where he died on Jan 29.

'There are indications of a failure to comply with professional and procedural standards,' lawyer Nober Siregar, from the Health Legal Aid Association, told AFP.

Mr Siregar, who accompanied the brother to file the complaint, said that the hospital in Tangerang had misdiagnosed the patient as suffering from dengue fever and then failed to provide blood transfusions, as should have occurred in a serious dengue case.

Also, results of laboratory tests were not given to the family, he said.

After treatment at the Jakarta hospital, Mr Siregar said the body had four incisions in the chest and abdomen, but the family had never been told of any surgery taking place and permission had never been sought from them.

A spokesman from the Jakarta hospital declined immediate comment.

The victim was the nation's 101st bird flu death. Another woman died last Friday of the H5N1 virus, bringing the current toll to 102.

Experts fear that the virus, which is usually spread directly from a bird to a human, could mutate into a form easily transmissible between people, sparking a deadly global pandemic.

The concern stems from past influenza pandemics. A pandemic in 1918, just after the end of World War I, killed 20 million people worldwide. -- AFP