As the number of telephone calls to the Department of Agriculture here reporting dead birds continues to fall, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said it believed that three more young people have died as a result of the flu.
If confirmed, the deaths of the 17, 20 and 21-year-old women will bring the number of known deaths directly related to the H5N1 strain of the virus to over 100.
WHO said it believed test results showing the three young women in Azerbaijan had died of bird flu were reliable, but was awaiting final confirmation from a British laboratory. Azeri health officials said the victims had fallen ill after contact with sick birds and were not thought to have infected each other.
Results were still pending on two other suspect deaths in the former Soviet state, including a 16-year-old boy related to the teenage girl who died last Friday.
The initial results came from a mobile laboratory brought into Azerbaijan from the US Naval Medical Research Unit in Cairo. The tests were positive for avian flu, but the exact strain was not yet known. Adding to fears over bird flu, India said it had detected another outbreak in poultry in the province of Maharashtra.