HANOI, July 31 (Reuters) - A 22-year-old Vietnamese woman has caught bird flu, the country's first human case since early June, and taken to a Hanoi hospital, state media reported on Tuesday.

Laboratory tests in Vietnam showed the woman from a farm in the northern province of Ha Tay, the largest poultry supplier to Hanoi, was confirmed to have the H5N1 virus, the Saigon Giai Phong (Liberation Saigon) reported.

She was breathing on a respirator, the newspaper quoted doctors treating her as saying but gave no further details.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has not confirmed the latest infection.

Bird flu killed a 28-year-old woman from northern Vietnam last month, the country's second casualty of the poultry virus this year.

Bird flu has killed 44 of the 99 confirmed cases in Vietnam since late 2003.

Globally, the H5N1 virus has killed 192 people out of 319 known cases, according to a WHO tally. Hundreds of millions of birds have died or been slaughtered.

The H5N1 virus remains mainly a virus of birds, but experts fear it could mutate into a form easily transmitted from person to person and sweep the world, killing millions.

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