An Egyptian woman died of bird flu Sunday, only hours after tests confirmed she had been suffering from the highly pathogenic H5N1 virus, a World Health Organization official said.

Hassan el-Bushra, regional adviser for communicable diseases surveillance at the WHO, said the 30-year-old woman had been in hospital since mid-December, but doctors had not immediately suspected bird flu as she denied having had contact with poultry.

Her death brings the number of total human deaths from H5N1 in Egypt to eight.

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Earlier Sunday, Bushra said that another two Egyptians - a brother and sister - had tested positive for the H5N1 virus.

The siblings are from a village near the town of Zifta in Gharbiya province, about 80 km (50 miles) north of Cairo, Bushra said.

He said the family raised ducks, and the brother, 26, and sister, 15, had slaughtered the flock after a number of ducks had become sick and died.

Both have been moved to hospitals in Cairo and have been treated with the drug Tamiflu, with the rest of the family being kept under medical surveillance, Bushra said.

The initial bird flu outbreak in February caused panic in Egypt, where poultry is a major source of protein, and poor families frequently breed chicken and ducks domestically in cities and rural areas to supplement their diet and income.

The Egyptian cabinet announced in November that the country's poultry production had recovered to almost the same level as before the deadly virus hit in February.

An official with the Food and Agriculture Organisation had said in October that the onset of cooler weather could cause a flare-up of cases in poultry.