Laos fears a second human bird flu death

BANGKOK, March 5 (Reuters) Laos believes it has had its second human death from the H5N1 bird flu virus, a 42-year-old woman who fell sick in a province near Vientiane, a senior official said today.

''There's a 90 percent chance that her death was caused by H5NI, but we can't confirm that until we have a result from a WHO lab,'' senior Public Health Department Bounlay Phommasack said by telephone.

The laboratory tests by the World Health Organisation would take about seven days, Bounlay said.

The woman, who fell ill on February. 26, was believed to have touched infected chickens in her village 60 km (37 miles) from Vientiane, Bounlay had said.

It would be the second human bird flu death in landlocked Laos.

The first was a 15-year-old girl who lived in the suburb of Vientiane where the virus was found in poultry in January.

The virus has infected at least 275 people in 12 countries since 2003 and killed at least 167 of them in 10 countries, the WHO says.

Public health experts fear it could mutate into a form that people catch easily from one another, possibly sparking a pandemic.

REUTERS PDM PM1745