China’s Health Ministry said that a young pregnant woman has died due to bird flu, the first reported case of fatality form the virus since early last year.

The 22 year old female was 4 months pregnant who contracted illness in later periods of May and breathed her last on Thursday in the central county of Hubei.

She had been diagnosed with avian influenza a day prior to dying.

An inquiry by China's Centre for Disease Control and Prevention established that the woman had contact with poultry prior to falling ill but that no avian flu infectivity were found in birds that were present near her house.

She was the 26the person to have died China ever since the virus re-emerged in the year 2003, out of 39 reported human cases, which was based on preceding World Health Organization statistics.

China is considered to be one of the nations that is most at risk of bird flu epidemics, since it has the world's largest poultry populace and many chickens in rural areas are reared close to humans.

Specialists are worried that the H5N1 virus could transform into a form that is easily infectious between humans, rather than from poultry to humans, with the possibility of killing millions in an epidemic.