A 12-year-old girl has died after suffering flu-like symptoms in a village in central China where the country's latest outbreak of bird flu was reported.

Hong Kong newspapers Thursday quote the girl's father saying she and her younger brother fell ill a week ago at home in Hunan Province after eating a sick chicken that had died.

On Wednesday, China reported an outbreak of the dangerous H5N1 strain of bird flu had killed more than 500 birds in the same village.

Doctors at the hospital where the girl died say there is no evidence yet linking her death with bird flu. They said her 10-year-old brother is recovering, but remains in isolation.

On Wednesday, three suspected cases of bird flu in humans were discovered on Reunion, a French island in the Indian Ocean near Madagascar.

The French health minister said they may have caught the virus from a bird zoo they visited while on vacation in Thailand.

More than 60 people in Asia have died from bird flu since 2003.

Some information for this report provided by AFP, AP and Reuters.