A five-year-old boy in central Thailand has died of bird flu, the 14th fatality in the kingdom since the H5N1 virus was detected early 2004, the Public Health Ministry said here Friday.

The child, a native of Nakhon Nayok province, died in the province's Ongkarak district Wednesday. Results of laboratory test have confirmed H5N1 as the cause of his death, Public Health Minister Pinit Jarusombat told the press.

He said the boy had had a fever, stomach ache and vomiting since Nov. 25, and was not hospitalized until Dec. 5.

Doctors had treated him as a normal pneumonia case, and only started to care for him as a suspected bird flu patient on Wednesday, hours before he collapsed.

Health authorities have put 14 of the boy's relatives under surveillance and ordered the culling of 1,800 chickens in the area, some 70 kilometers northeast of Bangkok.

Investigation has also been launched into the cause of the boy's infection as no birds had appeared ill or had died in the area at the time he fell ill.

Thawat Suntrajarn, director general of the Disease Control Department, said that the boy contracted the virus from his environment because he played beside a chicken coop and may have touched birds excrement.

It is Thailand's latest human case of bird flu since an 18- month-old baby, who has now recovered, was diagnosed with the virus on Nov. 11.

The fatality added the number of Thais who have died since H5N1 was first detected in early 2004 to 14 out of 22 confirmed human cases. So far, at least 70 people have died of bird flu in Asia.

Since the third round of bird flu resurgence in the kingdom, some 300,000 chickens and ducks have been culled in a bid to eradicate the epidemic. The government has recruited 900,000 volunteers to monitor any outbreaks and has begun producing its own version of the anti-viral drug Tamiflu.

Source: Xinhua