A young woman hospitalized last Friday in Bulgaria's second largest city of Plovdiv has died after showing symptoms of bird flu, Bulgarian state news agency BTA reported on early Monday.

The patient, 27, was sent to hospital with severe bilateral pneumonia and breathing difficulties, BTA cited the chief doctor Mariana Stoicheva as saying.

Stoicheva revealed the woman had worked in a local minced chicken factory, prompting the hospital to treat her as a suspicious avian flu-infected patient.

Initial tests to detect the fatal H5N1 strain of bird flu virus were immediately carried out and the results were negative, Stoicheva said. However, the samples have been sent to the laboratory in Sofia for confirmation, and the result is expected on Feb. 22.

If the test result confirms H5N1 virus, this will be the country's first human fatality from bird flu.

Another 32-year-old Bulgarian was hospitalized on Feb. 17 in the city of Haskovo, south Bulgaria, after showing symptoms similar to bird flu.

So far the Balkan country has detected the H5N1 strain of bird flu virus in several dead swans, while its neighbouring Turkey and Greece have already confirmed, or are close to confirming, human cases of avian flu infection.

Source: Xinhua