Bird flu has killed another woman in Indonesia, raising the country's death toll from the disease to 62.

The Health Ministry says the 19-year-old woman from West Java died yesterday.

It says she became ill six days after handling sick chickens.

The ministry says 80 people have been infected by the disease in the country overall.

Indonesia has the highest human fatality rate from the H5N1 virus.

The country's efforts to curb the spread of bird flu have been hampered by the reluctance of some poultry owners, especially backyard farmers, to hand over their sick or potentially infected birds for slaughter.

In Egypt, a woman has become the 11th person there to die of the disease.

H5N1 has killed around 160 people worldwide since late 2003 and triggered the mass slaughter of tens of millions of poultry.

- AFP