A 21-year-old Indonesian woman has died of bird flu, bringing the human death toll in the country from the virus to 66, a health ministry official said on Tuesday.

The woman died on Monday at Dr. Soetomo hospital in East Java´s Surabaya, Indonesia´s second-largest city, I Nyoman Kandun, director general of communicable disease control at the health ministry, told Reuters.

"We had hoped that she would survive as her condition was getting better a few days ago, but later it got worse and she died," Kandun said.

The woman had been confirmed last week as having the H5N1 bird flu virus, he said, adding Indonesia has now had 66 deaths from 86 cases of the disease.

Indonesia, which has millions of backyard fowl, has the world´s highest human death toll from bird flu.