Health authorities in the Netherlands say a veterinarian has died of pneumonia after being infected with the bird flu virus that has been sweeping through the Dutch poultry sector.
The 57-year-old vet, who died on Thursday in the southern city of Den Bosch, became ill two days after working on a farm that had been infected with the virus.
Bird flu has infected a handful of farm workers, but had until now only caused minor eye infections.
Dutch authorities have slaughtered around 15 million of over 100 million chickens in the country to fight the outbreak of bird flu.
