The Iraqi government announced on Thursday that a woman, suspected of being infected with the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus, had died in the southern province of Nassiriya.
Ibtisam Aziz, spokeswoman of the government's Committee on Avian Influenza, said in a statement that tests on samples from the woman were currently underway in laboratories in both Baghdadand Cairo.
In addition, samples from two villages in the Dayala province in northeastern Iraq are also being tested, said the spokeswoman, adding that the government had dispatched expert teams there to help cull the birds and disinfect the villages.
Iraq has so far reported two fatal human cases of bird flu. A teenage girl and his uncle from the northern Iraqi province of Sulaimaniya near the border with Turkey were confirmed dead of the deadly disease last month.