More poultry deaths occurred in Uthai Thani yesterday, the province where the bird-flu outbreak claimed another human victim last week, as vendors reported a plunge in the sale of chicken meat.

After culling all the chickens raised in the 27-year-old victim's backyard, livestock authorities in Uthai Thani yesterday received a report saying another 200 chickens had died in the province.

The man was the 16th person to die from avian flu in Thailand and the second fatality in the latest outbreak of the virus.

Agriculture and Cooperatives Minister Sudarat Keyuraphan said she had ordered the culling of 20,000 remaining chickens at a farm in the province's Muang district that is suspected to be infected.

For the moment, she said, culling of chickens would not be carried out until laboratory tests confirmed there had been an outbreak.

This rule will apply to all 29 provinces considered as high risk for a bird-flu epidemic, she said.

However, each district in Uthai Thani has been ordered to form culling teams in case they are needed, she said.

Public Health Minister Pinij Charusombat, who led a team of health officials to Uthai Thani yesterday, said another man in the province patient, aged 19, was showing symptoms similar to those of bird flu.

He is being kept under observation at the provincial hospital.

Pinij said the man had worked at a poultry farm in the province where many of the approximately 20,000 fowl being reared had begun to die at the end of last month.

He said the man was reported to have been handling dead chickens without proper protection before he fell ill on Thursday.

Doctors said he was in stable condition and was being treated with the anti-viral drug oseltamivir. They are still waiting for laboratory tests to confirm that he has contracted the H5N1 strain.

Dr Thawat Suntrajarn, director-general of the Centre for Disease Control, said another 80 people in Uthai Thani have been put under observation for signs of bird flu.

Most of these people were healthcare workers who had treated the latest victim of bird flu before he died last Thursday, and the remaining six lived in the same community as the victim. All of them have been given oseltamivir and showed no signs of illness, he said.

Meanwhile, Samut Prakan province reported that a 25-year-old woman worker from Nakhon Sawan had shown symptoms resembling those of bird flu.

The woman lived and worked at a construction site in Bang Phli district, but had reportedly been in contact with sick chickens in Nakhon Sawan.

Meanwhile, poultry meat vendors in one of the largest fresh markets in Bangkok said sales had been sliding since the first case of human bird flu was announced last month.

Sayan Chalongbhak, a chicken wholesaler, said sales had plunged between 20 and 50 per cent since then.

She managed to sell only 1,300 chickens a day during the period of the Chinese All Souls Day celebrations, unlike last year when she usually sold 2,000 chickens a day, she said.

Another vendor, Prapha Saithong, said people had turned to eating pork instead.