Feb 27 (Reuters) - Laos confirmed on Tuesday its first human case of bird flu, a 15-year-old girl living in a suburb of Vientiane where the virus was found in poultry three weeks ago.

Here is a brief chronology of some of the 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, and 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.

Feb. 3 - H5N1 is found to have been responsible for the deaths of 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. 16 - WHO confirms a death in Egypt. The global death toll stands at 167.

Feb. 27 - Laos confirms its first human case of bird flu.

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