The deaths of five young people in Azerbaijan from bird flu has brought the global confirmed death toll from the virus over 100, the World Health Organisation has announced.
The WHO said it was investigating whether the four women aged between 17 and 21 and a 16-year-old boy could have been infected while collecting feathers from dead swans.
Their deaths mean 103 people have been killed from the virus since late 2003, according to WHO figures.
Meanwhile, Pakistan has confirmed that the virus found in two poultry flocks late last month was the deadly H5N1 strain after sending samples to a laboratory in Britain.
23,000 chickens were culled after the outbreak in the North West Frontier Province, with no human cases reported.
In another development, Egypt has reported a fourth suspected human case of bird flu in a 17-year-old boy whose father had an outbreak of the disease on his chicken farm in the Nile Delta at the weekend.
Officials said the boy had been taken to hospital, where his condition was said to be stable.
Of the other three suspected human cases, one person has died, one has recovered and the third is receiving treatment.
