PHNOM PENH, Cambodia - A 20-year-old man has become the latest fatality in a flu outbreak in Cambodia, where hospitals are crowded with children with respiratory infections and two infants have died in recent weeks, the health minister said Tuesday.

Health Minister Nuth Sokhom said blood samples had been taken from the patients to be tested for bird flu and initial results should be ready within 24 hours. It was not clear whether the dead man was being tested.

Meas Met, from an orphanage in the capital´s Tuol Kork district, was admitted to hospital late Monday and died early Tuesday.

"Thirteen other people from the orphanage were hospitalised with flu-like symptoms on Tuesday morning," he said before adding that they had all reported eating cooked chicken before falling ill.

Cambodian hospitals are already inundated with an unusually high number of children suffering from a strain of human influenza this season, with about 1,000 admitted in recent weeks.