BANGKOK, Aug. 8 (Xinhua) -- Three persons were admitted to hospital in Bangkok, capital of Thailand, on Tuesday on suspicion of contracting bird flu virus, an official of the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration told Xinhua.

    Laboratory blood tests will take at least three days to confirm whether the patients were infected with the deadly bird flu, the official said.

    On Monday, a man who lives in downtown Bangkok was put in quarantine at a hospital in Bangkok after suffering a few days of flu-like symptoms.

    Meanwhile, Thailand's caretaker Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has declared at a meeting Tuesday to allocate a 20 million baht (about 500,000 U.S. dollars) fund to fight bird flu, which re-emerged in the kingdom late July when a 17-year-old boy died from the deadly H5N1 avian influenza virus, the first fatality of the disease this year and the 16th death since the epidemic first broke out in early 2004.

    The second victim was a 27-year-old man who died on August 3. Both of the two fatalities occurred in lower northern Thailand. Enditem

    Special report: Global fight against bird flu