HANOI, Feb. 26 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam's Health Ministry confirmed that the country's latest human case of bird flu infection was a 23-year-old woman teacher from northern Phu Tho province who died on Feb. 25 after five days of treatment in Hanoi capital, according to local newspaper Youth on Tuesday.

    The woman from Cam Khe district started to exhibit bird flu symptoms on Feb. 14 and was admitted to a provincial hospital on Feb. 19, then transferred to a hospital in the city-based Tropical Diseases Hospital on Feb. 21. She was tested positive to bird flu virus strain H5N1, the newspaper quoted Nguyen Huy Nga, director of the ministry's Preventive Medicine and Environment Department, as saying.

    The woman had not have direct contact with sick fowls before showing bird flu symptoms. Her family raises some chickens. A number of chickens have died around her house recently.

    To date, Vietnam has confirmed a total of 105 human cases of bird flu infections, including 51 fatalities, since the disease started to hit the country in December 2003. The World Health Organization has confirmed 104 infection cases, including 50 fatalities, not yet the latest case.

    In mid-February, two local people, a 27-year-old man named Hoang Van Doan from northern Ninh Binh province and a 41-year-old man named Do Van San from northern Hai Duong province, died from bird flu. On Jan. 18, a 32-year-old ethnic man named Tran Van Dong from northern Tuyen Quang province died from the disease.

    Last December, after detecting no human cases of bird flu infections for nearly four months, Vietnam's Health Ministry confirmed that a four-year-old boy from northern Son La province died on Dec. 16, 2007 from bird flu.

    Vietnam currently has seven localities having poultry being hit by bird flu: Thai Nguyen, Quang Ninh, Hai Duong, Nam Dinh, Tuyen Quang and Ninh Binh in the northern region, and southern Long An province, the Department of Animal Health under the country's Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development said on Feb. 25.

    Bird flu outbreaks in Vietnam, starting in December 2003, have killed and led to the forced culling of dozens of millions of fowls in the country.