A 21-year-old man from northern Vietnam has died of bird flu, becoming the 15th victim of the disease in the Southeast Asian country in the past two months.

The man died on Sunday at Hanoi's institute of tropical medicine after several days on a respirator battling a raging fever, said health ministry spokesman Pham Tuan Hung.

The victim's 14-year-old sister has also been struck down by the deadly H5N1 strain of the bird flu virus and is currently in hospital.

A 69-year-old man from the same province of Thai Binh, 100 kilometers (60 miles) from Hanoi, died of bird flu on February 23.

Hung also said a 35-year old woman from Hanoi tested positive on Monday.

She has been hospitalized since February 24. Doctors are unclear how she could have got infected as she had not reported any contact with poultry, Hung said.

Since last week, Vietnam has reported two new deaths and two contaminations. It followed a three-week lull without any new human cases.

With the latest fatalities, 35 people have died in Vietnam since late 2003 in several outbreaks of the disease. Another 12 have died in Thailand.

Thirty-five of Vietnam's 64 provinces and cities have been hit by bird flu this year and more than 1.5 million poultry have been destroyed in a bid to control the disease.

The World Health Organisation's regional director Shigeru Omi warned at an international conference on bird flu in Ho Chi Minh City last week of "the gravest possible danger of a pandemic."

During the meeting, Vietnam vowed to implement a nationwide overhaul of the poultry industry as part of efforts to stamp out bird flu.

(Chinadaily.com via agencies March 1, 2005)