At least two Pakistanis have died in a fresh outbreak of avian influenza close to the country's "poultry belt," the United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) has reported.

Pakistani health officials informed WHO of eight suspected human cases of infection with the H5N1 virus - the virus responsible for outbreaks of bird flu around the world in recent years - in the area around the city of Peshawar

Bird flu has resurfaced in different parts of Asia, with human deaths reported in Indonesia, Burma, Pakistan and China and fresh outbreaks plaguing other countries during the winter months when the virus typically flares, officials and scientists say.

Pakistan confirmed the country's first death from the bird flu virus on Saturday, the health ministry says in a press statement

Military-run Burma, officially known as Myanmar, on Saturday reported its first case of a human infected with bird flu, according to health official and state media reports.

A seven-year-old girl was discharged from the hospital in Myanmar's eastern Shan state this week after being treated for the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus, a health official of the Burmese livestock department said. "She is the first human case (of bird flu)

The deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu has been detected in chickens at a central Polish poultry farm, authorities said Monday. The new outbreak is the country's newest case of the avian flu after farm nearby was hit earlier this month.

"Just as in the previous cases all the chickens will be culled," Agriculture Ministry spokeswoman Malgorzata Ksiazyk said

The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned of the possibility that the H5N1 virus could be transmitted from person to person, based on findings that the father of a 24-year-old man who died of bird flu in eastern Jiangsu Province, China early this week was also infected with the deadly virus.

The condition of the 52-year-old father, who was identified only with his surname, Lu, is now being closely monitored after he showed symptoms of H5N1 on Monday and was confirmed on Wednesday to have the virus