HANOI, Jan. 6 (Xinhua) -- An eight-year-old Vietnamese girl from the country's northern Thanh Hoa Province has been infected with bird flu and hospitalized, said an official with the National Steering Committee for Avian Influenza here on Tuesday.

    The girl ate chicken before being hospitalized, the official told Xinhua. Specimens from poultry raised in Dien Chung town, where the girl is from, have been recently tested positive to bird flu virus, the official added.

    The girl is now being treated at the Vietnam National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology, and she is in a stable condition, said the official.

    About 7,800 poultry have been culled in the Dien Chung Town to prevent further spread of the disease, said the official.

    This is the first human case reported in the country this year.

    Vietnamese health officials warned last month country faced risks of bird flu reoccurrence and human infection of the disease due to the cool temperature.

    Bird flu outbreaks in Vietnam, starting from December 2003, have caused 106 human infectious cases and led to the killing of dozens of millions of fowls in the country, official figures showed.