The French woman suspected of having bird flu after returning from Turkey has tested negative for the pandemic in a southern French hospital. Two rounds of tests were carried out Sunday to rule out the presence of the deadly H5N1 virus.

According to a health ministry spokesman, the woman had spent two weeks in Turkey, but in a region where the virus was not known to have been active.

Bird flu has hit 26 Turkish provinces. At least four people have died from the H5N1 strain of the disease.

The woman, 32, was hospitalized in Montpellier on Saturday.

Her case was treated as potential bird flu because of the "symptoms and because the woman saw dead birds while traveling in a country affected by the epidemic," the ministry said earlier.

The H5N1 strain of the virus has killed about 80 people - mostly in Asia - since late 2003.