Chicken in a cage at market in Bac Ninh Province, near Hanoi, 14 Feb 2008

Vietnamese health officials say a woman in the north of the country has died from bird flu as a new outbreak is reported in southern China.

The director of Vietnam's preventive medicine department, Nguyen Huy Nga, said the 23-year-old teacher died Monday after testing positive for H5N1 strain of avian influenza.

Her death brings the number of people in Vietnam killed by the virus to 50, out of 105 total human infections.

In separate news, Chinese health officials Monday reported a new outbreak in the southern province of Guizhou. Authorities said nearly 4,000 poultry have died from the disease and a further 238,000 have been culled.

China earlier announced the death in Guangdong province of a 44-year-old woman - the country's 19th fatality and the third this year.

Some information for this report was provided by AFP, AP and Reuters.