A United Nations official and the health minister in Iraqi Kurdistan today said a 15-year-old girl who died earlier this month in northern Iraq was a victim of the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu, the first known case of the disease in the country.

Iraqi doctors are investigating if the deadly bird flu virus was responsible for the death of a 15-year-old girl in Kurdistan near the border with Turkey and Iran, an Iraqi Health Ministry official said today.