The Egyptian Health Ministry said Monday that a 15-year-old girl died of the H5N1 strain of bird flu, which brought the death toll of the disease in Egypt to nine, the official news agency MENA reported.

The girl was admitted to a Cairo fever hospital after contracting the disease on Dec. 23 and was administered the Tamiflu drug, said it.

She was put on a life support system on Saturday but she died earlier on Monday, said the Egyptian Health Ministry.

The girl´s death came one day after a 30-year-old woman, called Intisar Farid Abdel-Hamid, died of the deadly bird flu virus, after failed attempts to resuscitate her heart.

Both the girl and the woman were from the same family living in the Egyptian Delta governorate of Gharbiya, some 90 km north of Cairo.

Besides the two, a 26-year-old man from the family was also tested positive of the deadly virus. All the three infections were confirmed on Saturday.

With the three infections, Egypt has reported a total of 18 human bird flu cases.

Egypt found the first bird flu case in dead poultry on Feb. 17, 2006 and then the virus spread to 20 of the country´s 26 governorates.

The populous Arab country reported first human bird flu case on March 18 of 2006. Since then, nine people have died of the fatal virus in the country.