Two more people died of bird flu on Monday, bringing the number of deaths in Asia to 12. One was in Thailand, the other in Vietnam. Scientists fear that the virus may now be transmitting from person to person.

The two latest to die were a 58 year old woman in Thailand and a teenage boy in Vietnam. On Sunday the World Health Organization said two sisters who died in Vietnam last month probably caught the virus from their brother, the first cases of human-to-human infection in the current epidemic.

The brother also died, but he was cremated before an autopsy could be performed. His wife also contracted bird flu but has since recovered. The WHO representative in Vietnam Robert Dietz said they could not rule out human transmission at this stage.

Hospital officials in Vietnam's southern city of Ho Chi Minh said the teenage boy who died on Monday had caught the virus after eating meat from a chicken with avian influenza.

In Thailand, the latest victim was a woman who raised chickens in Suphanburi province 100 kilometers west of Bangkok. More details of her death have yet to be released. There are currently nine people in Thailand suspected of being infected with bird flu.

Ten countries in Asia have now reported cases of bird flu and millions of chickens and ducks across the region have died of the disease or been culled to prevent the virus spreading. But only two countries, Thailand and Vietnam, have recorded the virus in humans.

(CCTV.com February 3, 2004)