( dpa ) - A 22-year-old man in central China has become his nation's 18th human victim of bird flu.
The Health Ministry confirmed he had been infected by H5N1, the strain of the virus that can be deadly in people, but did not say how he might have been infected, the official news agency Xinhua reported Tuesday.
Most bird-flu patients catch the virus from close contact with infected poultry.
The man from Hunan province, identified only by his family name Li, became ill with fever and headaches and was taken to hospital January 22. He died two days later, the ministry said.
People who had close contact with him have been placed under observation.
Last month, two bird-flu infections were reported in one family in Nanjing in eastern China. A 24-year-old man died but his father, 52, recovered.
Health officials said it found no evidence in those two cases that the virus had developed into a form that could be easily transferred between humans.
While bird flu is highly infectious among birds, it is relatively difficult for humans to catch, but scientists fear that it could mutate into a form that could easily pass between people, setting off a global pandemic.
According to World Health Organization statistics compiled just before China's latest bird-flu case, 361 people in 14 countries in Asia and Africa have been infected by the virus and 227 have died from it.