According to government health officials in Azerbaijan, three people have died from bird flu there. They are the country's first known cases of the virus in humans.
Deputy Health Minister Abbas Velibeyov has reportedly said the three deaths, which occurred earlier this month, were diagnosed using equipment imported from Egypt and approved by the World Health Organisation (WHO) .
The three infected people were apparently members of a family from the Salyan region in southern Azerbaijan.
The family, like many others in the rural region, had kept poultry in their house.
The WHO reports that two H5N1 outbreaks last month were in poultry on farms in Khyzy, in the northeastern part of the country, and Bilasuvar in eastern Azerbaijan.
The virus is also reported to have sickened birds in neighboring Iran, Georgia and Russia.
Azerbaijan is also a neighbour of eastern Turkey, which has had several human deaths from bird flu
As yet the results of tests on samples from Azerbaijan sent to a WHO approved laboratory in Britain are still pending.
Doctors and medical equipment are being sent in after house- to-house searches for avian flu found at least three possible human cases, says the WHO.
The WHO says confirmation this week that an Indonesian girl had died from the virus takes the death total there to 22, and the total worldwide to 98 people since late 2003.
The 12 year old's death followed her 10 year old brother's death on the previous day, from what was thought to be dengue haemorrhagic fever, a mosquito-borne virus.
In that case also bird flu had been found in chickens in the children's home.
Eight people suspected of having contracted the virus are apparently being treated at a Jakarta hospital.
To date the disease remains a predominantly bird one and human victims of H5N1 contract the virus through direct contact with infected birds.
Experts have long feared the virus could eventually mutate into a form that can be easily transmitted from person to person, sparking a pandemic that could kill millions and cripple the world economy.
H5N1 has spread deep into Europe in a matter of weeks; it has gained a grip in Africa and flared up again in Asia.
Myanmar (Burma) has reported what is believed to be the closeted country's first case; according to Myanmar's Ministry of Livestock and Fisheries, an outbreak in poultry in the township of Aung Myae Thar Zan, in the Mandalay administrative division killed 112 fowl, and a further 668 poultry were culled to prevent the spread of the virus.
Although U.N. officials in Yangon say the authorities are co-operating, military-ruled Myanmar is seen by many international health experts as a risk area in the global fight against the disease.
The government of embattled Afghanistan and the United Nations say a bird flu virus has been found in a small number of poultry and it is highly likely it is the deadly H5N1 strain.