A 20-year-old Cambodian woman who was rushed to a Vietnamese hospital with suspected bird flu, died on Wednesday, the World Health Organization (WHO) said.

The woman from Kampot province had been taken across the nearby Vietnamese border suffering a high fever and respiratory problems, symptoms of the H5N1 virus that has killed 51 people in Asia, Vietnam´s Tuoi Tre newspaper said.

"We know that a Cambodian woman went to hospital in Vietnam and died in Vietnam but there is no confirmation yet that she died of bird flu," said Megge Miller of the WHO in Phnom Penh.

Test results from samples taken by doctors at the Kien Giang provincial hospital and sent to Ho Chi Minh City´s Pasteur Institute 250 km (155 miles) away should be available on Thursday, she added.

Three Cambodians from Kampot province have already died of the bird flu virus, along with 12 Thais and 36 Vietnamese. The Vietnamese newspaper quoted the girl´s relatives as saying chickens had died of unknown causes near her home.

Health experts fear the virus could mutate into a form which can pass easily among humans and millions could die in a global pandemic. Cases in places like Cambodia, where health and monitoring systems are rudimentary, only sharpen the fears.

---

If the death of this young woman is confirmed as a case of avian influenza
infection, it will be the 4th case of human H5N1 influenza virus infection
to have been contracted in Cambodia this year [2005]. All the cases have
been contracted in Kampot province close to the Vietnamese border. The 3
confirmed cases and this suspected case have all had a fatal outcome, in
contrast to the situation in Viet Nam, where almost half of those infected
have survived. This may be due to more active surveillance in Viet Nam
together with detection and treatment of milder cases. There is no evidence
of human-to-human transmission associated with this suspected case. Contact
with and/or consumption of diseased birds is the suggested route of
infection.---------ProMed