Vietnam reported the deaths of two more people from bird flu Saturday, pushing the toll to nine dead in three weeks, officials said.

A 35-year-old woman from the southern Mekong Delta province of Dong Thap died after being hospitalized, said Nguyen Ngoc An, director of Dong Thap´s Preventive Medicine Center.

She tested positive for the H5N1 strain of bird flu, An said.

The woman developed a high fever a week after slaughtering a duck she received from her neighbor. She did not eat the poultry, however, and none of her relatives who ate it showed signs of the disease, An said.

An said authorities suspected the woman might also have been infected by stork droppings in a pond where she often worked.

The World Health Organization and other health experts fear that avian influenza could evolve into the next global pandemic if the virus mutates and human-to-human transmission occurs. There is, however, no evidence of that yet.

Last year, the virus spread to 10 Asian countries, killing or forcing the slaughter of about 100 million birds. Since that outbreak, 29 people have died in Vietnam and 12 in Thailand.

The WHO also has cautioned against transporting poultry from places affected by bird flu to areas devastated by last month´s tsunami. The agency stressed that infected poultry must be "kept out of the food chain, including emergency food relief activities."

Another 17-year-old male died on 15th, Jan was also tested positive in H5N1 virus infection.

Samples from the 17-year-old patient from Phuoc Long district (Vietnam´s southern Bac Lieu province) were tested positive to the virus, according to the testing by thePasteur Institute in Ho Chi Minh City. The bird flu victim suffered cough, high temperature and breathing difficulties for several days after slaughtering chickens for meal.

*other reports stated the 17-year-old died on 14th, Jan*