Woman in China's Guangdong has suspected bird flu

HONG KONG (Reuters) - A woman in southern China is suspected to have been infected with the H5N1 bird flu virus, the Hong Kong government said on Monday, a week after the country reported its third death from the disease since last year.

The Centre for Health Protection said it had been notified by the Department of Health of the southern Guangdong province and Ministry of Health that the 44-year-old woman had developed symptoms on February 16 and the case had yet to be confirmed.

It gave no further details.

Last week, a man from China's southern Guangxi autonomous region died of the H5N1 bird flu virus, the third death from the disease since late last year, the Health Ministry said.

Of the 29 cases confirmed to date in China, 19 have been fatal. There have been 232 human deaths globally from the H5N1 strain and 366 confirmed cases of infection since 2003, according to WHO data.

(Reporting by Donny Kwok; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)