The Thai Health Ministry announced Wednesday morning that laboratory test shows a four-year-old boy died early this month had been infected with bird flu and killed by the fatal virus.

Charal Trivuthipong, chief of the Disease Control Department, said that the boy of Khon Kaen province died on Feb. 3 is the seventh confirmed victim infected by bird flu virus in the Kingdom.

He said the country had detected nine persons who had been infected by the virus, seven of them had died, while other 20 patients are still at the list of suspected infection cases.

He urges owners of chickens or fighting cocks not to smuggle the poultry from the epidemic control zones, or red zones, where all poultry had been ordered destroyed in order to deter the spread of the epidemic.

From Jan. 23 to Feb. 8, the Thai government successively declared 163 points out of 40 provinces as bird flu control zones and implemented strict measures to control the

epidemic.

Under the government rule, in the control zones chickens must be culled within a five kilometer radius where the virus was found and chickens may not be moved outside a 50-kilometer radius.

The government announced on Feb. 14 that all of the bird flu control zones had been downgraded to monitor zones and if there was no new case detected in 21 days, the nation would be declared bird flu free.

However, results of the latest test released Monday showed that bird flu re-emerged in 14 points of nine provinces.

The Agriculture Ministry has ordered to cull all fowls in 14 new red zones within three days.