A ministry statement quoted by the state Xinhua news agency said the woman surnamed Wei was from Zhoujiaxiang village of Jianyang City in the southwest province of Sichuan.

Wei showed symptoms on January 3 and was taken to hospital on January 10 with fever and pneumonia. She died the next day.

China has now recorded 11 human cases of bird flu, of whom six have died.

The ministry said that between December 25 and January 5, eight households sharing the same courtyard as Wei found some of their poultry sick or dead.

Local health authorities have put those who had close contact with Wei under observation but so far no abnormal symptoms have been reported, it said.

The virus has killed around 80 people since re-emerging in 2003, all but four of them in East Asia.

An international bird flu conference ended Wednesday in Beijing, with donor countries and organizations pledging 1.9 billion dollars to fight the killer virus worldwide.

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