JAKARTA, Dec 13 (Reuters) - Indonesia′s ninth human death from bird flu has been confirmed, a senior Health Ministry official said on Tuesday, taking the global death toll from the disease to 71, all in Asia.

A Hong Kong laboratory affiliated with the World Health Organisation had confirmed that a man had died from the deadly H5N1 strain on bird flu, which scientists fear will mutate into an easily spread human virus and spark a pandemic in which millions could die.

"We have received confirmation. (The death toll) is now nine," Hariadi Wibisono told Reuters about the findings on a man who died last month, making him the latest confirmed death from the H5N1 strain of bird flu in Indonesia, the world′s fourth most populous nation.

That would raise the number of deaths from the H5N1 avian influenza globally to 71, all in Asia, out of 138 people known to have been infected.

Five other people have been confirmed to have contracted the virus in Indonesia but have survived.

The highly pathogenic H5N1 strain is endemic in poultry in parts of Asia, and has affected birds in two-thirds of the provinces in Indonesia, a sprawling archipelago of some 17,000 islands and 220 million people.

The country has millions of chickens and ducks, many in the backyards of rural or urban homes.

Jakarta is preparing an early bird flu warning system