A Vietnamese woman with bird flu was in critical condition Friday, health officials said, not dead as previously reported.

The 35-year-old woman from the southern province of Tra Vinh was being treated at a hospital in Ho Chi Minh City, said Huynh Thanh Liem, deputy to the director of the province´s Preventive Medicine Centre. The centre´s director had earlier said she died, and state Media also reported her death. But Liem said he received confirmation that the woman remained in critical condition at the Hospital for Tropical Diseases in Ho Chi Minh City.

An official at the hospital also confirmed to The Associated Press that she was in critical condition. The official refused to give his name.

The woman has tested positive for the H5N1 strain of bird flu, Liem said.

She became sick after a neighbour hired her to bury dead ducks and pluck sick birds´ feathers for sale, officials have said.

Bird flu has killed 24 people in Vietnam and 12 in Thailand in the past year.

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A 35-year-old woman has died of bird flu in Vietnam, the country´s fifth fatality from the disease since late December last year.

A hospital doctor says the patient from southern Tra Vinh province was admitted in Ho Chi Minh City´s Hospital of Tropical Diseases on January 11.

"She died on Tuesday," he said.

He says the hospital is treating only one other patient confirmed to be infected with the deadly virus, who was in a critical condition.

Since late December a 16-year-old girl, an 18-year-old woman and two boys aged six and nine have died of the virus.

--AFP