A SOLDIER has died from bird flu, taking the death toll from the virus in China to 16, the Ministry of Health said yesterday.

The soldier was confirmed to have contracted the highly infectious H5N1 bird flu May 24 and died Sunday despite experts' efforts to save him.

The ministry said those who had been in close contact with the soldier had not shown any abnormal symptoms and all medical observations on them have been removed.

The 19-year-old soldier surnamed Cheng developed fever, cough and pneumonia symptoms May 9 and was sent to an army hospital May 14 and had been hospitalized since then.

A villager named Li Yinxiu from East China's Fujian Province was discharged from hospital May 29 after three months of treatment for the H5N1 virus with her blood pressure, breathing, pulse and temperature back to normal.

China has reported a total of 25 human cases of bird flu since 2003, but this is the first death to be reported since March.

The ministry confirmed last August that the country's first human case of H5N1 bird flu virus occurred in November 2003. A 24-year-old man who died in Beijing in 2003 was initially thought to have died from SARS.

Worldwide the virus has killed 188 people out of 309 known cases since it reemerged in Hong Kong in 2003.

Although it mainly affects poultry, scientists fear the H5N1 virus could mutate to become more easily passed between people and trigger a pandemic in which millions could die.

(Xinhua)