(Reuters)
Updated: 2007-03-29 14:59

BEIJING - Indonesia announced two more deaths from H5N1 bird flu on Thursday and China said a teenage boy had also died from the virus which has spread to more than 50 countries, raising fears of a pandemic.

The Indonesian Health Ministry said a 14-year-old boy and a 28-year-old woman had died, bringing the country's confirmed human death toll from the H5N1 virus to 71, the highest in the world. Indonesia announced three deaths on Wednesday.

The boy was from West Sumatra and died last Saturday, while the woman, from the capital, Jakarta, died on Wednesday.

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In China, the 16-year-old boy from Bengbu in the rural eastern province of Anhui died late on Tuesday, Xinhua news agency reported, citing a provincial health official.

The confirmation of more deaths came two days after Indonesia agreed to resume sharing virus samples for research in exchange for a World Health Organisation (WHO) pledge to restrict drug company access to them.

The WHO and other experts say sharing samples is vital to finding ways to fight the virus, while Indonesia, Thailand and some other developing countries want to make sure they have access to human vaccines at reasonable prices.

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said on Wednesday the world should work to create a level playing field to combat bird flu and other health threats.

The virus is endemic among fowl in many parts of Indonesia, the world's fourth most populous country. Human cases generally involve contact with infected birds.

H5N1 made the first known jump into humans in Hong Kong in 1997, infecting 18 people and killing six. The government ordered the immediate culling of the territory's entire poultry flock, ending the outbreak.

China, with the world's largest poultry population and a strained medical system, is seen as key to the fight against bird flu.

Initial investigations failed to reveal that the Chinese teenager who died had had any "history of exposure to fowl that died because of illness", Xinhua reported. Animal health experts have failed to find signs of the virus among birds in the area.

China has now reported a total of 24 human cases of H5N1, including 15 deaths, since 2003. It last reported a human death from bird flu in July last year, when the virus killed a farmer in the western region of Xinjiang.

The latest case brings total worldwide deaths from bird flu to 170, mostly in Vietnam and Indonesia, based on WHO figures. Experts fear it could mutate into a form that can easily pass from person to person, risking a pandemic that could kill millions.