BANGKOK, Sept. 27 (Xinhuanet) -- The Thai government on Monday announced that a woman has been confirmed of bird flu infection, a second patient of the epidemic since the second wave of avian influenza hit the kingdoms three months ago.

    Though confirmed of being infected with the virus, the 36-year-old woman identified Pranom Thongchan was recovering from the disease, the Thai Health Minister Sudarat Keyuraphan told reporters.

    The woman's 26-year-old sister and 11-year-old niece have died a couple of days ago with pneumonia symptoms. The mother and daughter's death have yet to be confirmed as bird flu infection.

    Pranom and her deceased niece have reportedly disposed carcasses of birds dying of bird flu earlier around her home in the province of Kamphaengphet, lying some 380 kilometers northeastof Bangkok.

    However, her deceased sister, who had no record of touching infected birds, had fallen sick after coming back from Bangkok andbriefly taking care of her sick daughter.

    The death of Pranom's sister on last Monday thus created great concerns of the possibility of transmission of bird flu virus among human.

    Health officials around the country are holding a meeting on Monday to discuss ways to prevent further spread of the epidemic.

    All hospitals are required to closely monitor patients with fever symptoms and some 20,000 health volunteers are organized to report abnormal death of fowls and educate people of basic information of the poultry epidemic.

    Meanwhile, the authorities played down the possibility of bird flu being transmitted between human.

    The acting health permanent secretary Charal Trinvudhipong, noted that the possibility of human transmission was only assumption and the authorities were still waiting for the lab testresult, which might take as long as one week.

    The other death of the other 13-year-old boy in the same province was also to be confirmed whether caused by infection of bird flu.

    Pranom was the second people infected with bird flu virus sincethe epidemic revived in Thailand in early July.

    A 18-year-old young man died of the disease in August, which put the kingdom's bird flu casualty to nine.

    In the first wave of avian fluenza outbreak in the first three months of this year, eight people in Thailand died of the disease.

    Another 19 people have died in Vietnam, bringing the Asian death toll to 28.

    Besides, there have been 128 patients in Thailand under observation for possible infection of the disease since early July.

    Now, 114 of the cases have been cleared and the rest are still waiting for the test result.

    Besides, the fowl epidemic also created economic damage to Thailand, the world fourth largest exporter of poultry products. Experts of the industry estimated that at least 30 million birds have been culled or died of the epidemic.

    Currently, there are 30 provinces of Thailand's 76 provinces reporting outbreak of bird flu. Enditem