BANGKOK, Jan 26: Thailand's bird flu crisis escalated on Monday with the announcement of the first confirmed human death and five suspected fatalities from the disease that has now spread across a vast swathe of the country.

A six-year-old boy died on Sunday, becoming the first victim of the virus that has infected two other children and is suspected of infecting five more children and killing five adults, authorities said.

"A child from Kanchanaburi (province) who was being treated at hospital in Bangkok died last night. Once he was infected his condition worsened very quickly," Health Minister Sudarat Keyuraphan said.

The department's disease control director, Charal Trinvuthipong, said that among the five suspected to have died from the disease were two women and three men from two provinces, central Sukhothai and Chachoengsao east of Bangkok.

"There are 10 suspected cases, with only five of them, who are children, still alive. We are waiting for lab test results for all of these cases," he said in a statement.

In a bid to contain the epidemic that has hit at least eight Asian nations, almost 11 million chickens have been culled across 24 of Thailand's 76 provinces, mostly in the epicentre provinces of Suphan Buri and Kanchanaburi.

The vast majority of culling has occurred since the outbreak of the H5N1 virus was confirmed on Friday. But the clean-up operation was set to be substantially widened as the government said it had detected bird flu in poultry in eight more provinces stretching from the capital Bangkok to the Laos border in the north.

Measures already in place in the two worst-hit provinces, including culls within a five-kilometre radius of infected farms and a transport ban in a 50-kilometre zone, would also be ordered, agriculture officials said.

The outbreak has rattled investors who led a panic sell-off on the Stock Exchange of Thailand, which plunged 3.83 per cent plunge on Monday in losses led by firms involved in Thailand's 1.2 billion dollar poultry export industry.

Deputy premier Somkid Jatusripitak said he had ordered the creation of two task forces - one to work with the livestock department in sample testing, and a second "killing team" to co-ordinate and conduct the cull.

Health Minister Sudarat said the government's priority now was to enforce the cull, a grisly task being carried out by hundreds of soldiers as well as government crews.

"What we can do now is control the spread in poultry. When animals get infected it becomes difficult to control," she said. Amid accusations that a delay in announcing the presence of the deadly H5N1 virus in Thailand had meant the cull was carried out in an unsanitary and ineffective way, she said the government would enforce strict standards.

"We urgently need to control the disease. The government will use ministry rules to take legal action against who throw chicken carcasses into rivers," she said. The crisis is affecting not just chickens but also the kingdom's one million roosters bred for cock-fighting.-AFP