(Adds WHO comment)

BEIJING, Dec 3 (Reuters) - A 24-year-old man from eastern China has died of the H5N1 strain of bird flu in the first case in the country since June, bringing the death toll from the disease to 17.

The man, surnamed Lu, was taken to hospital in Jiangsu province on Tuesday with a fever and died on Sunday, Xinhua news agency said, adding he had had no contact with dead poultry and there had been no reported poultry outbreak in the province.

"The local government has adopted relative prevention and control measures. All of the 69 people who had close contact with Lu have been put under strict medical observation. So far, they have shown no signs of symptoms," the report said.

With the world's biggest poultry population and millions of backyard birds roaming free, China is at the centre of the fight against bird flu. The country has had 26 human cases.

Scientists fear the bird flu virus could mutate into a form that could pass easily from person to person, sparking a global pandemic.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) said Chinese authorities had informed them about the case and they were in touch with the Ministry of Health.

"It looks like MoH is doing the right thing in terms of follow-up action," WHO spokeswoman Joanna Brent said, referring to the surveillance of his close contacts.

"At this stage we don't have any more information about how he (Lu) would have contracted it," she said. (Reporting by Ben Blanchard and Lindsay Beck; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)

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