March 9 (Reuters) - The deadly bird flu virus is spreading into southern provinces of impoverished, landlocked Laos after outbreaks near Vientiane, a government spokesman said on Friday.

Lao health officials have confirmed the country's first death from H5N1, a 15-year-old girl who died in a hospital in neighbouring Thailand on Wednesday.

Here is a brief chronology of major bird flu developments in the past year:

Feb. 8, 2006 - The first African cases of the deadly H5N1 strain are detected in poultry in the northern Nigerian states of Kano, Kaduna and Plateau.

Feb. 17 - Egypt finds its first cases of H5N1 in chickens.

Feb. 18 - India announces its first cases of H5N1, finding the virus in poultry in a western state.

Feb. 25 - France confirms H5N1 at a farm in the east where thousands of turkeys have died. It is the first case of the virus in domestic farm birds in the EU.

Aug. 8 - China says its first H5N1 human case was in 2003, not in 2005 as it had originally reported.

Sept. 28 - China shares long-sought-after samples of H5N1 in what many scientists view as a breakthrough in cooperation.

Dec. 8 - Foreign donors pledge an additional $476 million for the global fight against the virus at a meeting in Mali.

Dec. 21 - South Korea confirms a fourth case of bird flu in poultry. In November, it had confirmed its first case of H5N1 in about three years.

Jan. 9, 2007 - China says a farmer from the eastern province of Anhui contracted H5N1 in December, the country's first human case in months. He was released from hospital on Jan. 6.

Jan. 15 - Thailand reports its first outbreak of H5N1 in six months in ducks in the northern province of Phitsanulok.

Jan. 16 - Japan confirms its first outbreak of H5N1 in three years, in poultry in the southwestern prefecture of Miyazaki. Three further outbreaks in poultry are confirmed by Feb. 3.

Jan. 24 - Thousands of birds are culled after an outbreak among geese on a farm in Hungary.

Feb. 3 - WHO confirms that bird flu has killed a 22-year-old Nigerian woman, making her the first known human fatality of the H5N1 virus in sub-Saharan Africa.

-- H5N1 is found to have killed 2,500 turkeys on a farm in southeast England, the first outbreak in British poultry. A protection zone, a surveillance zone and a wider restricted zone, including Suffolk and Norfolk, are in place.

Feb. 27 - Laos confirms its first human case of bird flu. The patient dies on March 7. March 8 - WHO confirms the Laotian death. The global death toll stands at 168.

AlertNet news is provided by

Delicio.us  |   Digg  |   NewsVine  |   Reddit                                                                                  Permalink